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IN THE HIGH COURT OF ALLAHABAD
SUNITA AGARWAL, J.
Rohit Shukla and Ors - Appellant
Versus
State of U.P. and Ors - Respondent
WRIT - A No. 4052 of 2020
Decided On : 07-05-2021
Post of Assistant Teachers - key answers displayed by examining body - Challenged - Recruitment was held to fill up vacancies of the post of Assistant Teachers in different basic schools run by Basic Shiksha Parishad in the State of U.P. pursuant to a notification. The present set of writ petitions are second round of litigation by the candidates who seek to challenge key answers displayed by examining body after entertaining objections raised by several candidates. The writ petitions filed in the month of May’ 2020 and afterwards tagged in present bunch, had been heard. At very inception of the hearing, the Court had directed the counsels for the petitioners to sit together and find out the specific number of questions with reference to the booklet series ‘A’, key answers of which are subject matter of challenge in the present bunch - The question numbers and reference to the material which is basis of challenge to correctness of the key answers would be referred at the appropriate stage of the judgment - Whether any relevant material has been placed by petitioners to sustain their challenge – Whether they have passed or not; whether their result will be approved or disapproved by the Court; whether they will get admission in a college or University or not; and whether they will get recruited or not - whether challenge to the key answer in the present bunch would qualify above test.
Finding of the court: Court while entertaining a writ petition where the correctness of the key answer to a set of questions is challenged as entertaining a writ petition in a casual manner simply derails the whole selection process. As a self check measure, in each and every matter, the Court at the threshold, has to examine the merits of the objections of a candidate regarding the correctness of the key answer and to ask whether they are supported by any contemporaneous material so as to entertain the challenge to the decision of the expert. The controversy should be put at rest at the very beginning, i.e. at the stage of the admission of such a writ petition. Candidates who have not approached this Court well within a reasonable time (from the date of declaration of the answer key) should not be allowed to maintain their writ petition. The Court is not an expert of all subjects and has no expertise to evaluate the answer on its own. It is the duty of a petitioner to place relevant material and in absence of such material a writ petition should not be entertained simply on the ground that other writ petitions raising similar challenges have been entertained or pending. The contemporaneous material means authentic text book of the known established writer on the subject as the random competition books available in the open market cannot be relied upon by the Court to dispute the opinion of the expert who moderate the question papers and decide objections of the candidates - In any case, the Court has to be circumspect before entertaining the writ petition of this nature which have to be maintained at a higher pedestal.
Result: Writ petitions dismissed
JUDGMENT :
1. This bunch of the writ petitions have been filed by thousands of candidates raising a challenge to the key answers in the final answer key published on 08.05.2020 in an examination conducted on 06.01.2019.The recruitment was held to fill up vacancies of the post of Assistant Teachers in different basic schools run by the Basic Shiksha Parishad in the State of U.P. pursuant to a notification dated 01.12.2018. The present set of writ petitions are second round of litigation by the candidates who seek to challenge the key answers displayed by the examining body after entertaining the objections raised by several candidates. The writ petitions filed in the month of May’ 2020 and afterwards tagged in the present bunch, had been heard on 09.02.2021. At the very inception of the hearing, the Court had directed the counsels for the petitioners to sit together and find out the specific number of questions with reference to the booklet series ‘A’, key answers of which are subject matter of challenge in the present bunch.
2. At the time of hearing, the counsels for the petitioners had given the number of the questions of the booklet question series ‘A’ with corresponding questions of the booklet series ‘B’, ‘C’ and ‘D’, key answers of which are challenged as being incorrect. The question numbers and reference to the material which is the basis of challenge to the correctness of the key answers would be referred at the appropriate stage of the judgment.
3. However, before doing the same, it would be pertinent to note that the petitioners herein claim that they had submitted their objections to the answer key displayed by the examining body on 08.01.2019 but they were not adverted to. Much emphasis had been laid to the doubt expressed by the learned Single Judge of this Court (Lucknow Bench) in the judgment and order dated 03.06.2020 in Service Single No.8056 of 2020 (Rishabh Mishra & others Vs. State of U.P. & others) connected with 30 others writ petitions to support their submissions by the counsels for the petitioners on the correctness of the key answers under challenge, and it was pressed that in view of the said observations directions be issued for fresh evaluation by the experts.
4. With reference to the reasoning given therein, it is vehemently argued by the learned counsels for the petitioners that the final answer key displayed on 08.05.2020 with reference to the questions challenged therein is wrong and need fresh evaluation by the committee of experts as directed by the Bench in the aforesaid order.
5. It is important to note that the Division Bench of this Court in the judgment and order dated 12.06.2020 in Special Appeal No.154 of 2020 (Examination Regulatory Authority, Allahabad & others Vs. Rishabh Mishra & others) connected with others filed by the examining body had stayed the effect and operation of the judgment and order dated 03.06.2020 passed in the aforesaid matter.
6. It would be fruitful to note, at the outset, that the doubt expressed by the learned Single Judge in the judgment and order dated 03.06.2020 while evaluating the material put forth by the petitioners in the aforesaid bunch of the writ petitions cannot be made basis to sustain the challenge. It is well settled that in a case of challenge to the correctness of the key answer, burden is on the petitioners who brought such challenge before the Court to sustain the same by bringing contemporaneous material at the first instance. Any casual challenge to the correctness of the key answers cannot be entertained by the Constitutional Court. The legal position in this regard would be elaborately dealt with in the later part of this judgment. It would, however, be pertinent to note at this juncture that in the examination-in-question, held for the selection to the posts of Assistant Teachers in the State of U.P., out of total 150 questions objections to the correctness of key answer to 142 questions were filed by more than twenty thousand candidates. It
Educational administration provides appropriate education to appropriate student by appropriate teacher by which they can able to become best by using available maximum resources.
Judicial review of answer keys is limited; courts should not substitute their judgment for that of experts unless errors are clearly demonstrable.
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Judicial review of examination answer keys is limited; courts should not interfere unless errors are clear and demonstrable.
The court established that an expert committee's evaluation of answer keys in recruitment processes is presumptively correct, allowing judicial restraint unless glaring errors are evident.
Judicial review of answer keys in public examinations is limited; courts should defer to expert opinions unless errors are demonstrably clear.
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