ORDER

1. This petition under Article 226 of the Constitution of India has been filed by the petitioner, seeking the following reliefs:-

“7.1. That, this Hon’ble High Court may kindly be pleased to give the appropriate orders to the State/respondents in context of the exam titled “PCRT Recruitment 2020 iqfyl eq[;ky;] x`g ¼iqfyl½ foÒkx eè; çns'k 'kklu d¢ vkj{kd laoxZ dh ÒFkÊ gsrq p;u ijh{kk 2020^^ so that the petitioner herein be awarded marks for question No. 82 (having ID no. 2435511) and question No. 96 (having ID No.243381) be cancelled altogether from the question paper of the PCRT Recruitment2020;

7.2 That, the Hon’ble Court may issue a writ in the from of Mandamus directing the concerned respondents to prepare and declare a fresh merit list adjusting the consequences of the above-mentioned prayer;

7.3 That, the Hon’ble Court may order the concerned respondent to declare the petitioner as qualified in the PCRT Recruitment-2020;

7.4 Any other relief or writ or direction or order which this Hon’ble Court may deem fit and proper looking the facts and circumstance of the case is awarded to the petitioner including the cost of the litigation.”

2. This petition has been filed by the petitioner, who had appeared in Police Constable Recruitment Test (PCRT) in the year 2020. The provisional result of the which was declared on 24.3.2022, and the final result was declared on 12.11.2022.

3. The grievance of the petitioner is that he had obtained 72.50 marks and the two questions, mainly, if the questions No.82 and 96 are decided correctly by the respondents, he would get at least one mark. It is submitted that so far as the options given in question No.96 is concerned, all the options are wrong, hence, the aforesaid question is required to be deleted. Whereas, in question No.82, the right answer is option (B), which the petitioner has rightly given, however, the respondents have not awarded any marks to the petitioner.

4. Shri Vibhor Khanelwal, learned counsel for the petitioner has submitted that even in the reply filed by the respondent No.4, the respondent has enclosed the answer sheets of some other student, who had also raised similar objections, and the solutions given by the said students are correct. In such circumstances, the petitioner ought to have been awarded at least one mark for the question No. 82 and the question No.96 ought to have been deleted.

5. A detailed reply has been filed by the respondent No.4.

6. Shri Manu Maheshwari, learned counsel appearing for the respondent no.4 has submitted that no case for interference is made out, as the respondents had invited the objections of the students and an expert Committee was also constituted to decide those objections, which has given its report stating that the answer to question No.82 is (C) and not B, and thus, no change can be made to the same.

7. It is also submitted that otherwise also no case for interference is made out, in a case challenging the model answer sheet. In support of his submissions, Shri Maheshwari has relied upon the decisions rendered by Division Bench of this Court at Principal Seat Jabalpur in the case of Manuj Krishna Mishra and others v. The High Court Madhya Pradesh, Jabalpur (Writ Petition No.16211 of 2022 decided on 22.08.2022); Ku. Surabhi Baghel v. High Court Madhya Pradesh, Jabalpur (Writ Petition No.26346/2018 decided on 16.11.2018) and the decisions rendered by the Supreme Court in the cases of Himachal Pradesh Public Service Commission v. Mukesh Thakur and another reported as (2020) 6 SCC 759; Ran Vijay Singh and others v. State of Uttar Pradesh and others reported as (2018) 2 SCC 357; and the decision rendered by the Full Bench of the Supreme Court in the case of Nitin Pathak v. State of M.P. and others reported as 2017 SCC OnLine MP 1179.

8. Heard the counsel for the parties and also perused the record.

9. On 4.12.2024, this Court had also passed an order directing the respondents to form a fresh committee of two experts on the subject, who