By the Court.—Heard learned counsel for the parties.

2. This intra-Court appeal under Chapter VIII Rule 5 of the Allahabad High Court, Rules has been filed by Pawan Kumar, the writ petitioner against the judgment and order of the learned Single Judge dated 13.3.2013 passed in Writ Petition No. 50119 of 2006.

3. Facts in short relevant for deciding this appeal are as under :

4. District Judge, Hathras published an advertisement dated 27th October, 2003 calling for application from prospective candidates for appointment on the post of Stenographer in the Judgeship at Hathras. One of the essential conditions mentioned in the advertisement for the said post was the speed of 100 words per minute in shorthand and a speed of 35 words per minute in typing. The petitioner as well as respondent Nos. 4 to7 alongwith other applicants applied. Type test was conducted and as per the records made available to us. A dictation of 400 words was given to the prospective candidates within a span of 5 minutes to be transcribed in shorthand and thereafter to be typed in Hindi within a further period of 20 minutes.

5. The petitioner and respondent Nos. 4 to 7 are stated to have undertaken their type test examination. The name of the petitioner was not included in the select list while respondent Nos. 4 to 7 were declared successful and their names were mentioned in the merit list.

6. The petitioner approached the writ Court after more than 2 years of the said selection with the allegation that it has come to his notice that awarding of marks for the shorthand and type test conducted by the District Judge, Hathras was a farce. As a matter of fact the answer sheets had not been evaluated and marks have been recorded randomly without actual correction of the type sheets/shorthand sheets.

7. A counter-affidavit was called for. According to the District Judge the writ petition suffered from laches. The allegation in the writ petition was that there has been interchanged of the answer sheets of the petitioner and not in respect of any discrepancy in the evaluation of the answer sheets.

8. The stand taken by the writ petitioner qua the copies of shorthand having not been examined at all has specifically being taken note of by the learned Single Judge in the order in appeal and further that there has been complete non-consideration of the possession of the minimum speed required both for shorthand as well as typing test in terms of the advertisement made by the selected candidates.

9. It was also stated before the writ Court that respondent No. 5 and 6 were very close to the District Judge and the mother of the respondent No. 6 was employed as a domestic servant at the residence of the District Judge while the brother of respondent No. 6 was working as Class-IV employee in the Judgeship.

10. The writ Court even after noticing the aforesaid contentions proceeded to dismiss the petition on the ground that the records indicate that answer papers were examined and marks were allotted in consolidated manner, namely, that instead of awarding marks separately for shorthand and typing consolidated mark were awarded on the typed sheet, the procedure so followed cannot be turned as arbitrary. Ultimately, the Court proceeded to dismiss the writ petition.

11. A Division Bench of this Court after entertaining the present appeal thought, fit and proper to summon the original records pertaining to the answer sheets of shorthand/type test as held by the District Judge, Hathras, inasmuch as, if the allegations of answer sheets having not been examined at all and marks having been awarded in an arbitrary manner was found to be correct than the entire selection would stand vitiated and would border a case of fraud.

12. In terms of the direction issued by the Division Bench dated 11.8.2017 original records pertaining to the answer sheets of typing and shorthand test of respondent Nos. 4 to 7 and that of the writ petitioner have been produced before the Court.

13. We ha