IN THE HIGH COURT OF MADHYA PRADESH AT JABALPUR BEFORE HON'BLE SHRI JUSTICE VISHAL MISHRA ON THE 25^th OF JULY, 2025 WRIT PETITION No. 15605 of 2025 AMITESH RATHI Versus THE STATE OF MADHYA PRADESH Appearance:

Shri Piyush Kumar Tiwari - Advocate for the petitioner.

Shri Alok Agnihotri - Government Advocate for the respondents/State.

ORDER Challenge in the present petition under Article 226 of Constitution of India is made to FIR No.678/2023 dated 03/12/2023 registered for offence under Section 3-D/4 of M.P. Recognized Examination Act, 1937 at Police Station Habibganj, Bhopal.

2. It is the case of the petitioner that the petitioner is a brilliant student.

He cleared his Secondary School Examination from Central Board of Secondary Education, New Delhi in the year 2013 with a cumulative grade point average (CGPA) of 10. He cleared his Senior Secondary Examination in the year 2015 with A1 grade. Petitioner has cleared all India level entrance examination JEE Advance with All India Rank 1113 and got himself admitted in Indian Institute of Technology, New Delhi in the year 2015. He completed his B.Tech. degree in the year 2019 with CGPA of 8.194 on a 10 point scale. Petitioner is having a bright academic career and was participated Signature Not Verified Signed by: SHUBHANKAR and selected in various competitions/ programmes sponsored/ conducted by the State Government or Central Government which is reflected from the certificates which are filed in the petition. He participated in Indian Forest Service (Main) Examination, 2023 bearing Roll No.0417109 held on 02/12/2023 at Sarojini Naidu Government Post Graduate (Autonomous) College, Bhopal. The examination was conducted in two sessions. While he was attending his examination in the afternoon session, during invigilation he was wrongly caught by the invigilator that he is having handwritten slip in his possession. The Union Public Service Commission (hereinafter referred to as 'Commission') issued a show cause notice on 08/12/2023 to show cause why action be not taken against him for being in possession of handwritten slip or using unfair means during the aforesaid examination. Reply to the aforesaid was submitted by the petitioner. The Commission being dissatisfied with the reply submitted by the petitioner, issued notice to him on 04/03/2024 imposing penalty of debarring him for a period of three years w.e.f.

21/02/2024 from participating in any of the examinations conducted by it.

3. It is his case that on 03/12/2023 one Professor D.P. Rohit made a written complaint on the letter head of the College/ examination center to the Police Station, Habibganj, Bhopal, wherein he mentioned that the petitioner was caught red handed using unfair means during second session of Indian Forest Service (Main) Examination, 2023. Thus, FIR be registered against him. In pursuance to said complaint, FIR was registered against the petitioner under Section 3-D read with Section 4 of M.P. Recognised Examinations Act, 1937, wherein Police completed the investigation and prepared a final Signature Not Verified Signed by: SHUBHANKAR report on 30/12/2023. The Police Authorities collected several documents and also collected handwriting samples of the petitioner and sought opinion from the handwriting expert vide memo dated 28/12/2023. The handwriting expert gave its opinion on 14/02/2024 to the effect that the data supplied and the sample taken from the petitioner could not be matched. It is further pointed out that the petitioner in the year 2023 has cleared CSE 2022 examination with All India Rank of 373 and joined the Indian Railways as Officer and is presently working there which goes to show that petitioner being a brilliant student there is no occasion for him to use unfair means to clear the examination.

4 . It is argued that petitioner has already been debarred from participating in any of the examinations conducted by the Commission for a period of three years and now registration of FIR against the petiti