PAWAN NAINWAL Vs. STATE OF UTTARAKHAND

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The present Special Appeal is directed against the judgment dtd. 7/7/2022, rendered by the learned Single Judge in a batch of Writ Petitions, including Writ Petition (S/S) No. 410 of 2022, which had been preferred by the appellants herein. The learned Single Judge has dismissed all the Writ Petitions, which were dealt with simultaneously on account of the fact that similar grievances were raised by all the petitioners.

(2.) The respondents conducted a public examination, namely, the Combined State (Civil) Lower Subordinate Service Examination-2021. The petitioners, including the appellants herein also, participated in the said examination. The cut-off marks, for the economically weaker sec. candidates, were fixed at 105 marks. The writ petitioners-appellants secured less than 105 marks out of 150 in the preliminary examination. The examination consisted of 150 Multiple Choice Questions in the preliminary examination.

(3.) It appears that when the answer-key, to the question paper, was made public, and objections invited, the Expert Committee went into the objections and found that 12 questions were erroneous. The respondents then took a policy decision to delete the said 12 questions, and to award 12 bonus marks for the said 12 questions to all the candidates. The petitioners before the learned Single Judge, including the appellants herein, raised the grievance that the methodology adopted by the respondents had resulted in other candidates stealing a march over them, even though, according to the petitioners, they were more meritorious. The marking scheme for the examination was that one mark was awarded for each correct answer, and negative mark, i.e.-0.25 (minus 0.25), was awarded for every wrong answer. The petitioners contended that the process of awarding bonus marks to all the candidates meant that, even those candidates, who have not attended the said 12 questions, were awarded marks for those questions. The petitioner, in particular, raised a grievance in respect of Question No. 91, set out in Question Booklet Series (C), which reads as follows:-