125 IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH Date of Decision: 29.08.2025 Anshu …Appellant Vs State of Haryana and others …Respondents CORAM: HON’BLE MR. JUSTICE ASHWANI KUMAR MISHRA HON’BLE MR. JUSTICE ROHIT KAPOOR Present: Mr. Sumit Sangwan, Advocate for the appellant.

Mr. Puneet Gupta, Addl. AG, Haryana.

Mr. Kanwal Goyal, Advocate for respondent No.3.

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ASHWANI KUMAR MISHRA, J. (Oral)

1. Learned Single Bench has refused to interfere in the writ petition challenging the answer key published by the respondent – Commission by relying upon various judgments of the Hon’ble Supreme Court as well as this Court.

2. On the last date, when the matter was heard, we indicated that similar view has been taken by this Court in LPA-2368-2025, relying upon the judgment of the Hon’ble Supreme Court in Ran Vijay and others vs.

State of UP and others 2018 (2) SCC 357.

3. Learned counsel for the appellant has attempted to distinguish the order by relying upon the judgment of the Hon’ble Supreme Court in the case of Siddi Sandeep Ladda v. Consortium of National Law Universities and another, 2025 INSC 714 and Rustam Garg vs. Punjab and Haryana High Court Chandigarh and others CWP-17608-2019, decided on

08.08.2025.

4. Learned Single Bench has dealt with the grievance of the appellant, wherein correctness of Questions No.39, 42 and 55 were assailed in the screening test held for the post of Assistant Professor (College Cadre) Botany pursuant to advertisement No.42/2024. In Paras No.2 to 5, the learned Single Bench has dealt with the facts of the case, which are reproduced as under:-

“2. Learned counsel for the petitioner contends that the aforesaid three questions have been wrongly deleted. There was no dispute about their answers, and the provisional answer key give the correct answers to all these questions. He further contends that in the final answer key answer to question no.98 has been wrongly mentioned as option ‘B’. The correct answer as per the material placed on record, including extract of a book “Plant Biotechnology – The genetic manipulation of plants”, by Adrian Slater, Nigel Scott, and Mark Fowler, is option ‘C’. This has caused material prejudice to the petitioner who has secured 63.8021 marks, as against the cut-off of 64.84. The aforesaid questions have been correctly answered by her, and she deserves to be given marks for the same as well.

3. Learned counsel for the Commission, on the contrary, contends that after holding the Screening Test, provisional answer key was uploaded on the Commission's website on 05.05.2025 inviting objections from the candidates. All the objections received were sent to independent subject experts, and as per their report, the final answer key has been published on 30.05.2025 along with the Screening Test result. It is as per the opinion of the experts that aforesaid three questions, 39, 42 and 55, have been deleted and answer to question no.98 has been maintained as option ‘B’. He has brought the subject experts’ report in a sealed cover.

4. Heard.

5. The subject experts’ report brought by learned counsel for the Commission has been perused which shows question nos.39, 42 and 55 have been deleted as per opinion of the experts being not properly framed. Regarding question no.98, the experts have opined option ‘B’ as the correct answer. In the face of opinion by experts, who are working on senior academic positions in different Universities, this Court finds nothing wrong in the action taken by the Commission in deleting the aforesaid three questions and maintaining option ‘B’ as the correct answer to question no.98. The report has been re-sealed and returned.”

5. So far as the judgment relied upon by the appellant in the case of Siddhi Sandeep Ladda case (supra) and Rustam Garg case (supra), learned Single Judge has made the following observations:-

“6. The reliance placed by learned counsel for the petitioner on an order, dated 27.05.2025, passed by the Division Bench in CWP-17608-2019 titled Rustam