The court upheld the final Answer Key and the Expert Panel's recommendations, emphasizing the integrity of the examination process and the lack of procedural irregularities in evaluating objections.

JUDGMENT

Lisa Gill, J.

CWP No. 8510 of 2024 and all other 31 writ petitions, detail of which is given at the foot of the judgment, are taken up together for consideration and adjudication together at request and with consent of learned counsel for parties.

2. Prayer in all the writ petitions is for setting aside/revision of the preliminary examination result declared on 09.04.2024 for Haryana Civil Services (Judicial Branch) (for short 'HCS') Examination 2023-24 conducted pursuant to advertisement dated 01.01.2024, primarily on the ground of Answer Key-provisional and/or final, being incorrect.

3. In this bunch of writ petitions, there is a set of petitioners who had submitted objections pursuant to publication of the provisional Answer Key on 07.03.2024 on the objection web portal of HPSC and another set of writ petitions, wherein petitioners had been satisfied with the provisional Answer Key thus had not submitted any objections thereto, but are aggrieved of the final Answer Key along with result published on 09.04.2024 on the website of this Court with most of them filing objections/representations qua the Final Answer Key.

4. Basic facts necessary for adjudication of these writ petitions are being extracted from CWP No. 8510 of 2024 for the sake of convenience with reference to the specific questions, Answer Key of which has been challenged, being taken separately from the other writ petitions and as tabulated in the following paras.

5. Advertisement dated 01.01.2024 was issued seeking applications for 174 posts (129 actual vacancies + 45 anticipated vacancies) of Civil Judge (Jr. Division) in the cadre of HCS (Judicial Branch). Category-wise bifurcation of the posts is detailed in Clause 5 of the advertisement and is not being reproduced for the sake of brevity. It is provided in the advertisement that examination shall be conducted in three stages i.e.,(a) preliminary stage (for screening only), (b) main written examination, which shall consist of five written papers and (c) viva voice. It is provided in Clause 9 (A) of the Advertisement that preliminary examination shall be of objective type with multiple choice questions. The OMR sheets would be scanned by the computer with no provision of rechecking, revaluation of OMR Sheets. Details regarding preliminary examination as provided in Clause 9 (A) read as under: -

"A) Preliminary Examination (for screening only).

(i) The Preliminary Examination shall be of objective type with multiple-choice questions as distinguished from the Main Written Examination which shall be of subjective/narrative type. The OMR Sheets (Answer Sheets) will be scanned by the Computer. So there is no provision of re-checking/re- evaluation of these OMR Sheets.

(ii) The question paper for Preliminary Examination shall be of two hours duration. It shall consist of 125 questions and each question shall carry 04 marks and for every wrong answer 0.8 mark i.e. 20% or say l/5th mark shall be deducted.

(iii) Each question shall have five options (A, B, C, D and E). If a candidate is attempting a question, he shall have to darken the appropriate circle A, B, C or D and if not attempting a question then, he shall have to darken 'E' Circle. If none of the five circles is darkened, one-fifth (0.8 mark) mark shall be deducted.

(iv) Any candidate not darkening any of the five circles in more than 10% questions (13 questions) shall be disqualified.

(v) The objective type questions with multiple-choice answers for the Preliminary Examination shall be from the syllabus for the Main Examination. The candidate shall be expected to have a general and basic over view of the main subjects and also the ability to answer questions on current events of national and international importance, Indian legal and constitutional history and governance. The candidate shall also be tested for his analytical skills, reasoning and aptitude. The standard of the questions shall be of Law Graduate level.

(vi) The object of the Preliminary Exa