By the Court.—Heard Dr. L.P. Mishra, Mr. Vivek Raj Singh, Mr. Manik Sinha, Advocates on behalf of the petitioners, Mr. I.B. Singh, Senior Advocate assisted by Mr. Rajneesh Kumar, Advocate for the U.P. Public Services Commission and Mr. J.N. Mathur, Senior Advocate on behalf of the selected candidates.

2. In the aforementioned bunch of writ petitions, the result of the U.P. P.C.S. (J), 2006 conducted by U.P. Public Services Commission (hereinafter referred to as ‘Commission’) is under challenge. In the writ petitions mentioned at Serial No. 1 to 11, petitioners are the candidates, who were selected in the written examination and were called for interview, but failed to get their place in the final select list. Other petitioners are the candidates who failed to qualify the written/preliminary examination.

3. This bunch of writ petitions was earlier heard by another Bench of this Court. Under the orders of the said Bench, the record pertaining to the aforesaid selection was summoned vide order dated 8.10.2010. The entire record was in 11 boxes. We have been informed that 8 boxes contained the answer books while in the remaining 3 boxes, there were other documents pertaining to the said selection. In view of the bulk of records, the Registrar of this Court was directed to make inspection of the record in presence of the parties and submit report with regard to the factual status. The said order was challenged before the Hon’ble Apex Court by the Commission and Hon’ble Apex Court upheld the said order and S.L.P. was dismissed. Hon’ble Apex Court in the matter directed that the candidates or their counsels shall not be permitted to peruse the answer sheets and accordingly in compliance thereof this Court directed the Registrar of this Court, who was asked to submit a fact finding report, to comply with the said directions. The fact finding report was filed by the Registrar in Court on 16.12.2010. When this bunch of petitions came up for hearing before this Bench then this Court directed the petitioners to implead the selected candidates also as opposite party. In view of the large number of selected candidates, to be precise 237, this Court directed that the entire petitions be uploaded on the website of this Court and Registrar General was directed to inform all the selected candidates as they were working as Judicial Officers in the State of U.P. and it was further directed that they may download the petition from the website. In compliance thereof the selected candidates have also put in their appearance and filed their counter-affidavits. In their counter-affidavits, they have supported the stand taken by the Commission.

4. During the course of proceedings, Mr. I.B. Singh, Senior Advocate appearing for the Commission has raised objections to the correctness of the report of the Registrar of this Court and has submitted that he has filed the supplementary affidavit wherein in paragraph No. 3 of the said affidavit, it has been stated that the guidelines, which have been laid down by the Hon’ble Apex Court in paragraph No. 23 in the case of Sanjay Singh and another v. U.P.P.S.C., Allahabad and another, (2007) 3 SCC 720, were strictly adhered to. Under these circumstances, in order to verify the aforesaid submissions made in the said paragraph, the Court preferred to inspect the record and accordingly record of three boxes (containing the procedural documents) were inspected by the officers of the Commission in the presence of the Bench on 11.5.2013.

5. The record was inspected by the officers of the Commission While inspecting the record, minutes of the work shop conducted for the General Knowledge paper was found in the boxes wherein the entire details of workshop were mentioned. Thereafter, on the date of next listing an application for permission for inspection of the other boxes was moved on behalf of Commission. It was submitted that the record with regard to the moderation of the marks may be in other boxes and theref