JUDGMENT :

Anil Kshetarpal, J.

1. Introduction and submission made by the learned counsel representing the rival parties:-

1.1 The petitioner aspires to be a judicial officer, however, he failed to secure minimum passing marks as he fell short by 2 marks. He has filed the present writ petition challenging the correctness of answer given to question no.2 (iv) of English Language subjective examination.

1.2 As per the recruitment notice, no re-evaluation of answer sheets is permitted. However, learned counsel representing the petitioner while relying upon the judgments passed in Moonak Garg and others vs. Punjab and Haryana High Court and others (CWP-331 of 2023 decided in 29.09.2023) and Radhika Likhi vs. State of Punjab and others (CWP-4264-2016 decided on 09.06.2017) submitted that the answer sheet is required to be sent to another subject expert for re-evaluation. By referring to the various English dictionaries, learned counsel submits that the answer given to question 2 (iv) was correct and it has been wrongly marked as incorrect.

1.3 Per contra, learned counsel representing the respondents while drawing the attention of the Court to the recruitment notice submits that reevaluation is not permissible and the Court should not act as a super evaluator while relying upon the judgements in Parmod Kumar Srivastava vs. Chairman, Bihar Public Service Commission, Patna and others (2004) 6 SCC 714, Board of Secondary Education vs. Pravas Ranjan Panda & another (2004)13 SCC 383.

2. Discussion and Decision:-

2.1 This Court has considered the submissions made by the learned counsel representing the parties and examined answer to question no.2(iv). A subject expert/valuator has adjudged the aforesaid answer as wrong and incorrect. Under question no.2, the candidates were required to make sentences using the words. The petitioner has attempted the question by making sentence which the evaluator has marked incorrect. Admittedly as per the recruitment notice re-valuation of answer sheets is not permitted.

The Supreme Court in Ran Vijay Singh and others vs. State of U.P. and others' (2018) 2 SCC 357 has held as under:-

30.1 . If a statute, Rule or Regulation governing an examination permits the re-evaluation of an answer sheet or scrutiny of an answer sheet as a matter of right, then the authority conducting the examination may permit it;

30.2 . 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;

30.3 . The court should not at all re-evaluate or scrutinise the answer sheets of a candidate-it has no expertise in the matter and academic matters are best left to academics;

30.4 . The court should presume the correctness of the key answers and proceed on that assumption; and

30.5 . In the event of a doubt, the benefit should go to the examination authority rather than to the candidate.

31. On our part we may add that sympathy or compassion does not play any role in the matter of directing or not directing re-evaluation of an answer sheet. If an error is committed by the examination authority, the complete body of candidates suffers. The entire examination process does not deserve to be derailed only because some candidates are disappointed or dissatisfied or perceive some injustice having been caused to them by an erroneous question or an erroneous answer. All candidates suffer equally, though some might suffer more but that cannot be helped since mathematical precision is not always possible. This Court has shown one way out of an impasse - exclude the suspect or offending question.

32. It is rather unfortunate that despite several decisions of this Court, some of which have been discussed above, there is in