The main legal point established in the judgment is the scope of judicial review with regards to re-evaluation of answer sheets and the correctness of the answer key finalized by the respondent Commission.

JUDGMENT :

1. This bunch of four writ petitions pertains to the Uttarakhand Judicial Service Civil Judge Preliminary Examination 2023. The said preliminary examination was conducted by the Uttarakhand Public Service Examination, which is a body constituted under Article 315 of the Constitution of India and as such, is a constitutional body. Since almost identical issues have been raised in all these petitions in relation to questions formulated by the Commission with the aid of their subject experts, all the writ petition were heard together, and disposed of by this common judgment.

2. For the purpose of recruitment to the post of Civil Judge, an Advertisement bearing no. 10/DR/E-2/Civil Judge/2022–23 was published by the Commission called as Uttarakhand Judicial Service Civil Judge Examination 2023. The examination is designed to be conducted in two steps. First step is a preliminary examination, which is based upon objective type of questions and the second step comprises of a main examination. Those, who qualify in the preliminary examination, are permitted to appear in the main examination. The purpose of holding preliminary examination is to shortlist the candidates for appearing in the main examination.

3. The petitioners applied for the post of Civil Judge in response to the advertisement aforesaid. Since all of them were eligible, they are permitted to appear in the preliminary examination and they have participated in it. The answer keys were published and objections were invited. Various objections were furnished and thereafter, final answer keys were published on 29.05.2023. The date for conducting the main examination was also declared and was scheduled from 23.08.2023 to 26.08.2023. The Commission also published the provisional answer key on their website i.e. https://psc.uk.gov.in and invited objections from the candidates and after receiving objections, and disposal of the objections, the result of the preliminary examination was published on 29.05.2023 with cut off marks for all eligible candidates.

4. Since none of the petitioners in these writ petitions were declared to be qualified in the preliminary examination, they have filed these writ petitions raising identical issues in respect of certain questions asked for in the preliminary examination. In all these writ petitions, petitioners are questioning the answer key in respect of same set of questions.

5. The Uttarakhand Public Service Commission has filed its counter affidavit. The Commission in the counter affidavit submits that as per the aforesaid regulations, the provisional answer key of all the questions were uploaded on the official website of the Commission on 04.05.2023 inviting objections from the candidates. The objections were to be filed online between 05.05.2023 and 11.05.2023 on the official website and it was clearly mentioned in the notification that the objections received, after the last date, would not be considered. A total of 223 objections were received in respect of the provisional answer key, and on the basis of these objections, the number of unique question - answer keys whereof were challenged were 26, which were placed before the subject experts. The subject experts, thereafter, deliberated on these unique questions and found that the questions and answers keys of 25 unique questions were correct and recommended that there is no need to change the answer keys of these 25 unique questions. It is further contended by the Commission that these 25 unique questions also consisted the questions, disputed in present writ petition, which according to the petitioners, do not have correct answer keys. It is further contended by the Commission that on the basis of recommendation made by the subject experts, the Commission did not make any change in the answer options of objectionable questions. The Commission also placed on record the repo