JUDGMENT :

1. This bunch of writ petitions are at the instance of unsuccessful candidates who had applied for appointment to the post of Trained Graduate Teacher (Male) in Sanskrit against advertisement no.01/2016, issued by the U.P. Secondary Education Service Selection Board, Allahabad (hereinafter referred to as 'Board'). They assert that their merit has not been correctly evaluated as answers relied upon by Board to some of the questions are wrong and consequentially the select list suffers from patent illegality. A prayer is also made to direct the Board to reassess or re-evaluate questions on the basis of correct answers.

2. It is contended that most of the petitioners have fallen short by one (1) or two (2) marks and since large number of vacancies are still available, therefore, the Board be directed to award them correct marks for the answers given by the petitioners in light of the materials placed before the Board and also this Court.

3. Respondent Board, on the other hand, has filed an affidavit in the leading writ petition annexing a chart as Annexure-1 to contend that model answers have been worked out on the basis of opinion of experts and, therefore, the award of marks to candidates in the examination suffers from no illegality.

4. Answers to fourteen (14) questions in the examination are disputed by the petitioners on the ground that they are wrong. To the extent of seven (7) out of these fourteen questions the Board has found substance in the challenge laid and those questions are deleted on the basis of expert opinion obtained and marks for these seven questions have been equally distributed to all candidates. Grievance, therefore, survives only in respect of seven questions.

5. At the outset, it would be worth noticing that written examination was conducted for the recruitment on 09.03.2019 and the first answer key was published on 26.03.2019. Objections were invited from the candidates between 27.03.2019 and 03.04.2019. After considering the objections raised a revised answer key was published on 25.10.2019. It appears that the corrected answer key published on 25.10.2019 was questioned in Writ Petition No.19059 of 2019, wherein a counter affidavit was invited from the Board. The Board appears to have called for a fresh opinion of experts in respect of the disputed questions and final answer key has been published on 12.02.2020, which is the basis of award of marks to the candidates.

6. Out of the seven (7) disputed questions it transpires that no objections were filed in respect of three of them, namely question nos.28, 73 and 80 of Booklet Series A despite opportunity given in that regard by the Board. Challenge to correctness of model answers in these three questions need not be entertained, directly in writ proceedings, when no such challenge was laid before the Board. The first of the remaining four disputed questions is question no.46 of the Booklet Series A. Option (D) was disclosed to be correct answer in the first answer key but after the candidates objected to it the Board declared the answer to be wrong and proposed to delete the question. However, without there being any fresh opportunity of objection to the candidates or any order of the Court the Board unilaterally proceeded to change the answer to this question as option (A). Question no.46 of the Booklet Series A corresponds to question nos.16, 105 and 73 of the Booklet Series B, C and D respectively, and is quoted below:

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7. The next disputed question is question no.8 of Booklet Series A, corresponding to question nos.103, 67 and 35 of the Booklet Series B, C and D respectively. The Board consistently held option (B) to be the correct answer in all the model answers. Petitioners, however, submit that correct answer is option (C). Question no.8 of the Booklet Series A reads as under:

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