By the Court.—The petitioner, who belongs to general category, responded to an advertisement issued by the U.P. Public Service Commission (the Commission) inviting applications for appointments of Civil Judges (Junior Division) in the Uttar Pradesh Judicial Service.

2. The selections are made after holding a preliminary examination and then a main examination followed by interviews. The preliminary examination was conducted by the Commission on 6 September 2015. The preliminary examination consisted of General Knowledge and Law Papers. The General Knowledge paper was of 150 questions carrying one mark each, while the Law Paper also contained 150 questions but of two marks each. Thus, the total marks of General Knowledge were 150 while that of Law Paper were 300. The result of the preliminary examination was declared on 29 September 2015.

3. The petitioner has challenged the key answers of the preliminary examination of two questions namely, Question Nos. 52 and 73 in ‘C’ Series of General Knowledge Paper. The Commission proposed four options (a), (b), (c) and (d) for each of the 150 questions and the candidates were required to select the correct option.

4. Initially, the key answers of the aforesaid two papers were displayed on the website of the Commission from 12 September 2015 and objections were invited from candidates. In order to examine the objections, two separate subject expert Committees were constituted by the Commission. The Expert Committee, after considering the objections raised by the candidates, deleted certain questions and marks have been awarded for these questions on the basis of a formula which is as follows:

total number of marks X No. of correct answer given by the candidate

Total marks obtained = ______________________________________________________________________

total number of questions - number of deleted questions

5. The petitioner, who belongs to the general category, obtained 81 marks in the General Knowledge Paper and 219 marks in Law Paper. Thus, in total he obtained 300 marks, whereas the cut off mark for general category was 301.

6. The main examination was conducted by the Commission on 29 October 2015 and the petitioner was permitted to appear at the main examination in view of the interim order dated 15 October 2015 passed in this petition. The Court has been informed that now interviews are being conducted.

7. The answers to the two questions, on which doubts have been raised by the petitioner, are as follows:

“52. Consider the statements:

Assertion (A) : The State Election Commission is appointed by the State Government

Reason (R) : It has the responsibility of holding elections to the Panchayati Raj institutions.

Select the correct answer using the codes given below:

(a) Both (A) and (R) are true and (R) is the correct explanation of (A).

(b) Both (A) and (R) are true, but (R) is not the correct explanation of (A).

(c) (A) is true, but (R) is false.

(d) (A) is false, but (R) is true.

73. The largest Mica producing State in India is:

(a) Jharkhand

(b) Andhra Pradesh

(c) Madhya Pradesh

(d) Rajasthan”

8. In regard to Question No. 52, the Commission had initially published the key answer declaring (d) as the correct answer, but on certain objections having been filed by the candidates, the Commission revised the correct answer to option (a). According to the petitioner, the correct answer is option (d).

9. Likewise for Question No. 73, the Commission initially declared option (a) as the correct answer, but on objections having been raised by candidates who had appeared in the examination, the Commission revised the answer to option (b). According to the petitioner, the correct answer is option (a).

10. We have examined the matter on the basis of material submitted by Shri Anil Sharma, learned counsel appearing for the petitioner, Shri M.N. Singh, learned counsel for U.P. P