Hon'be Saral Srivastava, J.—In all the above nine writ petitions and the 10th & 11th filed later, the controversy is in regard to the Uttar Pradesh Civil Services Examination-2017 conducted by the Uttar Pradesh Public Service Commission (hereinafter referred to as 'the Commission') pursuant to the advertisement No. A-2/E-1/2017 dated 22.2.2017 for filling up 251 vacancies subsequently increased to 677 of the Upper Subordinate Services of the State.

2. The aforesaid selection is conducted as per the procedure laid down under the Uttar Pradesh Public Service Commission (Procedure and conduct of business) Rules, 2011 framed under Section 11(1) of the Uttar Pradesh State Public Service Commission (Regulation of Procedure) Act, 1985.

3. The selection for the above post is conducted in three stages. The first is that of preliminary written examination for the purposes of screening so as to find out suitable candidates. The second stage comprises of the main examination in which only the candidates successful in the preliminary examination are permitted to appear. The third stage is of personality test i.e. interview. The aggregate of the marks obtained in the main examination and the interview forms the basis for determining the final order of merit.

4. The preliminary written examination consist of two papers; General Studies-1 and General Studies-2. The paper of General Studies-2 is of the qualifying nature and the marks obtained therein are not counted for the purposes of determining the merit for qualifying the preliminary examination. The paper of General Studies-1 comprises of 150 questions of 200 marks in aggregate each carrying equal marks. The said paper is objective in nature with multiple choices wherein the candidate has to select one of the four alternatives as the correct answer and has to tick it.

5. The question paper of General Studies-1 that consist of 150 objective questions with multiple choice answers is printed in four sets in series A, B, C and D. All the four sets of series of question papers contain the same questions but at different serial numbers to avoid coping during the examination.

6. In the paper of General Studies-1 which consist of 150 objective questions with multiple choice answers, five of the questions were subsequently deleted by the Commission thus leaving 145 questions for the purposes of awarding marks to the candidates.

7. After the preliminary examinations were held, the key answers were published by the Commission. It is on the basis of the key answers of so published of General Studies-1 that the petitioners contend that either some of the questions are incorrect, vague or confusing or that some key answers are incorrect or that some of the questions had two correct answers.

8. The petitioners allege that the answers to several of the questions given by them are correct and more appropriate then the key answers furnished by the paper setters. Thus, if they are awarded marks in those questions they would qualify the preliminary examination.

9. Thus, the controversy which has been raised herein these petitions is as to who between the paper setters/the teachers or the students/candidates expressing different opinion in respect of some of the questions of General Studies-1 is correct.

10. In each of the writ petitions few questions and answers are disputed and some of them are common. In all about 14 questions and answers are in dispute which have been tabulated as under :

Sl No	A	B	C	D	Key Answer
1	2	75	136	48	B
2	12	85	139	51	B
3	24	97	1	69	C
4	33	113	17	79	B
5	35	108	12	81	A
6	38	111	15	77	C
7	56	129	33	105	D
8	67	140	44	106