Sreeraj P.R., the minor son of the petitioner herein, appeared for the Upper Primary School Scholarship (USS) Examination conducted by the respondents on 25.06.2022. The first language of the examination chosen by her child was Sanskrit. When the admission ticket was issued, the medium of examination, i.e., the First Language I and First Language II, was mentioned as Malayalam instead of Sanskrit. As the child was just 12 years old, he failed to notice the discrepancy in the admission ticket. The petitioner asserts that the child appeared for the examination and scored 44 marks out of 60 marks as evidenced by Ext.P2 OMR sheet. The grievance of the petitioner is that results have not been published to date. It is in the afore circumstances that this writ petition is filed seeking issuance of directions to the 1st respondent to consider and pass orders on Exhibit P5 representation and also for a further direction to the 2nd respondent to value Exhibit P2 and publish the results.

2. The learned Government Pleader, on instructions, submitted that the OMR Sheets are evaluated by the OMR scanner by using Optical Mark Recognition Technology. If any error occurred with regard to the input of data, the same would interrupt the process of capturing human-marked data from the OMR sheets, and this would lead to non-evaluation of the OMR Sheet. It is further stated that all candidates were informed well in advance about the importance of marking data in the OMR sheet, such as question booklet code, medium, etc., through a notification. In the case of the petitioner, the student had recorded the first language as Sanskrit in the OMR sheet but in the hall ticket, the selected first language of examination was Malayalam. It is further stated that the hall ticket was issued for all candidates before 22.06.2022, and if there were any errors, it had to be brought to the notice of the Pareeksha Bhavan. It is also stated that the Pareeksha Bhavan has given instructions to the Ottapalam District Educational Officer to investigate the issue related to the petitioner and report about the clerical errors in the hall ticket, and reports are awaited. The respondents contend that the request made by the petitioner to evaluate the OMR Sheet would adversely affect the procedure and fairness of the conduct of a competitive scholarship examination. It is also stated that if the request of the petitioner is entertained, similar applications would be received from other candidates for correcting the OMR sheets.

3. I have considered the submissions, and I have gone through the records.

4. There is no dispute with regard to the fact that the son of the petitioner herein, a 12-year-old boy, had applied for the Upper Primary School Scholarship (USS) Examination 2022 held on 25.06.2022. There is also no dispute with regard to the fact that he had applied to appear for the exams in Sanskrit medium. Due to some internal error, the admission ticket issued to the petitioner was in respect of the Malayalam Medium. It is not the case of the respondents that it was due to any mistake on the part of the petitioner or her son that such a discrepancy occurred. On the contrary, it is stated that an investigation has been ordered to be initiated to find out the reason for this discrepancy. The case of the petitioner is that the child was just 12 years old, and he failed to notice the discrepancy in the hall ticket. Ext.P2 copy of the OMR Sheet would reveal that the child, at the time of attending the examination, had excelled in the exam and had scored 44 marks.

5. It is the stand of the respondents that valuation cannot now be carried out due to technical reasons. It is also stated that accepting the contention of the petitioner would adversely affect the procedure and fairness of the conduct of a competitive examination. I do not think that the stand taken by the respondents is correct. They are justified in saying that OMR scanners used by the respondents would not id