JUDGMENT :

1. Heard Sri Radha Kant Ojha Senior Advocate assisted by Sri Shivendu Ojha, Sri Ashok Khare Senior Advocate assisted by Sri Siddharth Khare, Sri Shashi Nandan Senior Advocate assisted by Sri Udayan Nandan, Sri Tarun Agrawal, Sri Satyendra Tripathi and Ms. Shreya Gupta, learned counsels for the petitioners at length. All other counsels appearing for the petitioners in the writ petitions tagged with this bunch have adopted the arguments extended by the above noted counsels.

2. Sri Mahish Goyal learned Additional Advocate General assisted by Sri Vikram Bahadur Yadav learned Standing Counsel has been heard on behalf of the State-respondents and the U.P. Police Recruitment and Promotion Board, Selection Board. Sri Sankalp Narain learned Advocate has extended his arguments on behalf of the selected candidates, private-respondent Nos. 4 to 23, in the leading writ petition.

3. These writ petitions have been filed by the candidates who had obtained 50% marks in each Section/subject in the online written examination held in multiple shifts between 12.12.2017 and 23.12.2017. The facts relevant to appreciate the controversy at hands are that a notification dated 17.6.2016 was issued by the third respondent namely the Additional Secretary (Recruitment), Uttar Pradesh Police Recruitment & Promotion Board, Lucknow (Selection Board) advertising 2707 posts of Sub-Inspector (Civil Police), Platoon Commander P.A.C. and Fire Brigade Second Officer in the pay scale/pay band/9300-34800 and grade pay Rs. 4200. The recruitment was to be made on the basis of online written examination of one question paper (total 400 marks) comprising of four Sections/subjects of 100 marks each, named as:

4. Before conducting the written examination, in order to provide method and modalities of the selection process, a notification dated 28.6.2017 was issued by the Selection Board in continuation of the advertisement notification dated 17.6.2016. The aforesaid notification provides that online applications were invited for filling up total 2707 vacancies of Sub-Inspector, Civil Police (Male and Female), Platoon Commander and Fire Service Second Officer where-under total 6,30,926 applications had been received. Looking at the huge number of applicants, the Board had resolved to hold written examination in multiple shifts which would require preparation of different sets of examination papers. As there was possibility of variation in the difficulty level of the questions papers, it had decided that for preparation of merit list of successful candidates, the marks obtained by the candidate papers/subjects wise would be normalized by using "Standardized Equi-percentile Method" in the same line as adopted in M.A.H., M.B.A/M.M.S., C.E.T. 2015 examination. The notification further states that the questions papers would be of 160 multiple choice questions carrying total 400 marks. Each Section/subject comprised of 40 questions carrying maximum 100 marks; 2.50 marks allocated for each right answer. There was no negative marking for the wrong answer. It was further notified that the candidates who failed to obtain 50% marks in each subject would not be eligible for recruitment.

5. The recruitment to the posts in question is governed by the U.P. Sub-Inspector and Inspector (Civil Police) Service (First Amendment) Rules' 2015, Recruitment Rules, whereunder Rule 15 provides for detail procedure for direct recruitment to the post of Sub-Inspector. The said rules have been framed in exercise of powers under clause (c) of sub-section (2) of Section 46 read with sub-section (3) of the said Section and Section 2 of