IMPORTANT POINT
The court affirmed that expert committee decisions on examination processes are final, limiting judicial review to cases of clear material error.

JUDGMENT :

HARSIMRAN SINGH SETHI J.

1. By this common order, two writ petitions, the details of which have been given in the heading, are being decided as both these petitions involve the same question of law on similar facts.

2. For the sake of convenience, the facts are being taken from CWP N o. 7552 of 2017.

3. In the present petition, the prayer of the petitioner is for amending answer key of the written examination qua Question No. 73 and to re-calculate the marks of the candidate concerned and thereafter, make selection to the post of Deputy District Attorney as advertised vide Advertisement No. 2 of 2015, a copy of which has been appended as Annexure P-1.

4. Learned counsel appearing on behalf of the petitioner submits that the petitioner competed for the post of Deputy District Attorney as advertised by the respondents vide Annexure P-1 and appeared in the written examination on 14.01.2017. After the conduct of the said examination, the answer key of the said written examination was published inviting objections and the petitioner had submitted an objection qua Question No. 73. Learned counsel submits that without adverting to the said objection, the result was finalized which is arbitrary and illegal, hence, respondents are under obligation to decide the objection of the petitioner qua Question No. 73 and thereafter, publish the answer key and the consequent result of the written examination.

5. Learned counsel for the respondent-Commission submits that after the written examination when the answer key was published inviting objections, large number of objections were received and keeping in view the objections received in all the questions including Question No. 73 were put to the experts for their opinion and as per the report of the experts, two questions i.e. Question No. 34 and 85 were found to be not valid keeping in view the answers depicted in the answer key and the same were deleted thereafter, the result of the written examination was published and the selection process was further finalized.

6. There is no replication to the said written statement.

7. I have heard learned counsel for the parties and have gone through the record with their able assistance.

8. The jurisdiction of this Court to evaluate the answer has already been settled by the Hon’ble Supreme Court of India while passing order in Civil Appeal No. 367 of 2017 titled as Ran Vijay Singh and others Vs. State of U.P. and others, decided on 11.12.2017. In the said judgment, the Hon’ble Supreme Court of India has held that after the objections are received and the same are put to the Expert Committee and the report of the Expert Committee is accepted by the Recruiting Agency, there is no further jurisdiction with the Court to deal with the issue as to whether the answer key is correct or not.

9. Hon’ble Supreme Court of India has gone to the extent that even after the Expert Committee report, if there is a dispute/ambiguity qua any question, it will go in favour of the Recruiting Agency and not the candidate. The relevant paragraphs 30 and 31are as under :-

“30. The law on the subject is therefore, quite clear and we only propose to highlight a few significant conclusions. They are: (i) If a statute, Rule or Regulation governing an examination permits the reevaluation of an answer sheet or scrutiny of an answer sheet as a matter of right, then the authority conducting the examination may permit it; (ii) If a statute, Rule or Regulation governing an examination does not permit re-evaluation or scrutiny of an answer sheet (as distinct from prohibiting it) then the Court may permit re-evaluation or scrutiny only if it is demonstrated very clearly, without any "inferential process of reasoning or by a process of rationalisation" and only in rare or exceptional cases that a material error has been committed; (iii) The Court should not at all re-evaluate or scrutinize the answer sheets of a candidate - it has no expertise in the matter and academic matters are best