VIPON SANDUJA Vs. REGISTRAR DELHI HIGH COURT

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Petitioner appeared in Delhi Judicial Service Examination, 1996 conducted by Delhi High Court for 40 posts of Delhi Judicial Service. Examination was conducted from 17.8.1996 to 19.8.1996 and result thereof was declared on 24.4.1997. Only 16 candidates were declared successful. Petitioner was not amongst successful candidates. On 9.8.1997, he received mark sheet dated 30.7.1997 as per which petitioner got 72 marks out of 200 in Civil Law I paper. Petitioner was not satisfied with the evaluation in respect of this subject and he made representation dated 22.8.1997 to Hon'ble the Chief Justice, Delhi High Court and the Registrar (Exams) Delhi High Court requesting for rechecking/revaluation of Civil Law-1 paper. This representation was rejected by Registrar vide communication dated 6.9.1997. Petitioner filed the instant petition, after a gap of about 14 months challenging the communication dated 6.9.1997 rejecting his representation. He submits that he has now discovered the provision giving him right to seek rechecking or revaluation and therefore filing the petition at this stage.

(2.) Interestingly although reason for filing belatedly the petition is that petitioner has discovered the provision of right of the petitioner not only to seek rechecking/revaluation i.e. enforcement of the application confirmed on the administrator as defined in DJS Rules, 1970, no such provision is shown or mentioned in the writ petition which allegedly gives right to the petitioner to seek rechecking or revaluation. In fact during the course of argument it was admitted that there is no such provision. Thus no valid explanation is given for approaching the Court belatedly and the petition suffers from laches and delay. However since case was heard on merits, I proceed to deal with the writ on merits as well.

(3.) The main thrust in the writ petition is that it is the right of every candidate appearing in the examination for rechecking and revaluation as the examination conducted have inherent risk of clerical/typographical or inadvertent error which invariably is associated with the conduct of examination involving thousands of candidates. Reliance is placed on Rule 33 of the Delhi Judicial Service Rules, 1970 which reads as under :