THE HON’BLE THE CHIEF JUSTICE SATISH CHANDRA SHARMA AND THE HON’BLE SRI JUSTICE ABHINAND KUMAR SHAVILI WRIT APPEAL No.1340 OF 2008

JUDGMENT

(Per the Hon’ble the Chief Justice Satish Chandra Sharma)

The present writ appeal is arising out of the order dated

27.12.2007 passed by the learned Single Judge in W.P.No.27064 of 2007.

The undisputed facts of the case reveal that the writ petition was preferred by the sole respondent being aggrieved by the action of the present appellant in not evaluating his answer book in respect of Accounts Test for P.W.D. Officers and Subordinates Paper-II Examination held on 17.06.2007. The facts further reveal that the respondent/writ petitioner appeared in the examination pursuant to Notification No.19/2006 and the examination was of two papers i.e., Paper-I and Paper-II with Paper Code Nos.137 and 142. Results were declared, however the respondent/writ petitioner was declared qualified in Paper-I i.e., Paper Code No.137 as he obtained 44 marks, but in respect of Paper-II i.e., Paper Code No.142, it was mentioned that “Invalid for Roll.No. wrongly encoded”. Meaning thereby, Paper-II was not valued at all. A reply was filed in the matter and the present appellant brought to the notice of the learned Single Judge that the respondent/writ petitioner has not followed the instructions meant to the candidates and in the instructions, it was clearly mentioned that the candidates should fill register number (hall ticket number) legibly in the boxes provided for on Barcode answer sheet and encode it properly, otherwise the answer script will be invalidated. Undisputedly, the respondent/writ petitioner has not followed the same, his answer script was invalidated and it was a mistake committed by the respondent/writ petitioner alone. The learned Single Judge, in spite of the aforesaid, has directed valuation of the answer script.

The order was passed by the learned Single Judge in the year 2007 and we are in the year 2022. There was interim stay granted in the year 2008 and the answer sheet has not been valued so far. The other important aspect of the case is that the respondent/writ petitioner has subsequently qualified the examination in question.

The operative portion of the order passed by the learned Single Judge is reproduced as under:-

“Learned counsel for the respondent stated that, in the OMR Barcode sheet supplied at the time of examination, the candidate has to fill his name hall ticket number, name of the examination etc. and encode the paper code number and hall ticket number properly i.e. fill-up the circle having the same digit against each digit of the code number and hall ticket number. The said OMR sheet will be tagged to the answer script of the candidate and, at the time of evaluation, the OMR sheet will be fed into the computer and, if all the columns are properly filled up and are properly encoded, the same would be accepted and the answer script will become valid for evaluation; otherwise, the OMR sheet will be rejected and the answer script will be invalidated. Coming to the case of the petitioner, since he did not properly encode the hall ticket number and wrongly encoded the same, his answer script was invalidated. He further contended that in the notification, at clause (xvii) of the important instructions to the candidates, it is clearly mentioned that the candidate should fill the register number (hall ticket number) legibly in the boxed provided for on Barcode answer sheet and encode it properly, otherwise the answer script will be invalidated. Since the petitioner has not followed the same, his answer script was invalided and the same cannot be said to be wrong on the part of the respondent.

Learned counsel for the respondent has produced before the Court the OMR Barcode sheet belonging to the petitioner and, on perusal of it, it is clear that the petitioner, while filling up all other particulars correctly, wrongly encoded the hall ticket number by filling up the 5th circle against t