The court affirmed that academic evaluations should not be judicially interfered with unless glaring errors are evident, emphasizing adherence to procedural timelines for objections.

JUDGMENT :

Saurabh Shyam Shamshery, J.

1. Heard Sri Shivendu Ojha and Sri Shatrughan Sonwal, learned counsel for petitioner in leading W.P.No.11837 of 2020 and respective Ld. Counsel in connected Writ Petitions on behalf of petitioners, Sri K.Shahi, Sri K. K. Chand, learned counsel for the B.S.A., Sri Ashish Nagwanshi, learned A.C.S.C, Sri Rajeshwar Tripathi learned C.S.C and Ms.Shruti Malviya, Brief Holder in all Writ Petitions.

2. This present bunch of Writ Petitions, arises out of an Assistant Teacher Recruitment Examination, 2018 and objections to answers given by the petitioners to some questions of said examination.

3. It is the case of the petitioners that if their objections are considered and accordingly their respective marks are increased, they may cross cut off marks i.e. 67 marks for General Category or 60 marks for SC Category, as the case may be.

4. This dispute has earlier brought before a Co-ordinate Bench of this Court in Writ Petition No.18235 of 2018, Aniruddh Narayan Shukla and 118 Ors Vs. State of U.P. & 3 Ors, which was disposed of vide judgment dated 30.10.2018, wherein certain directions were passed for re-evaluation of answers and for reference directions given therein are reproduced hereinafter:

“In light of what has been observed above, it would now be appropriate to refer to the specific issues that have been crystallized by this Court earlier for consideration of petitioners' grievances.

(I) Some of the petitioners have not been awarded marks against their correct answers because their answers have not been evaluated at all:

It has been noticed that some of the petitioners have not been awarded marks against their correct answers because their answers have not been evaluated at all. This does not create any difficulty once the authorities have undertaken to allow re- evaluation of answer sheet itself. While conducting re-evaluation, this aspect can be specifically examined and instances of this kind would be corrected by awarding marks for correct answers, which have not been evaluated earlier.

The first issue is resolved, accordingly.

(II) No marks have been awarded against certain other correct answers on account of the fact that there is some cutting noted in the scanned copies, though there is no such cutting available on the carbon copies:

The second category of petitioners' grievance has been enumerated in following words:-

The scanned copies have been issued to a large number of candidates in terms of guidelines upon deposit of Rs. 2,000/- as fee. In cases, where it is found that though no cutting exists in the carbon copy retained by the candidate while cutting appears in the answer sheet, it would be appropriate to permit such petitioners to produce materials in support of such allegation before the Examination Regulatory Authority, within a period of two weeks from today, along with certified and/or true copy of this order. The authority would examine such instances and an appropriate decision would be taken and communicated to the petitioner concerned.

(III) The key answers to some of the questions are stated to be clearly wrong as per existing NCERT books and other expert material:

The third issue highlighted on behalf of the petitioners is regarding correction of model answers with reference to various literatures available and relied upon in support of the petitioners' contention. Shri Saroj Yadav has placed before this Court literature in order to show that the answer, mentioned in the uploaded answer key, of question no. 37 of Booklet Series 'A' is not correct and that, a different answer would be the correct answer. Such objection, however, need not to be examined by this Court, on merits, for the simple reason that none of the petitioners has raised such a grievance before the Examination Regulatory Authority within the time which had been allowed for the purpose by the Authority while publishing the schedule of conduct