POONAM YADAV Vs. STATE OF U.P.

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Heard learned Counsel for the parties.

(2.) Contention of Sri B.R. Singh learned counsel for the petitioner based on a Division Bench judgment in Special Appeal No. 75 of 2013, another Division Bench judgment in Special Appeal No. 2312 of 2011 is, that, this was a human error for which the petitioner could not be penalized.

(3.) On a perusal of the instructions appended to the question booklet series it is revealed that sl. no.2 of the "important instructions" provides for choosing only one language which the candidate has selected as an option in his/her registration and mark on OMR sheet otherwise the answer sheet will not be evaluated, and the candidate will be wholly responsible for it. Thus the petitioner was very well aware that an omission on this count would have the aforesaid result. Further more. the 'instructions' asked the candidate to "read all instructions carefully before making any entry on the OMR answer sheet". Further more at sl. no.4 of those instructions, it was mentioned "your answer sheet will be evaluated through electronic scanning process. Incomplete or incorrect entries may render your answer sheet invalid." Further more, at sl. no.6 it was provided that "while darkening the appropriate bubble in the boxes darken the chosen bubble fully as given below." Thus, it is clear that specific instructions were given to the candidates with regard to the manner in which the OMR answer sheets were to be filled and the consequences of not doing so were also clearly mentioned. Much mileage was sought to be drawn by the counsel for petitioner based on the recital contained in the OMR sheet on the first page (page 18 to the writ petition) to the effect that "I hereby certify that I have checked the following information of the candidate. Name, Roll Number, Question booklet Series and Language attempted" which was to be signed by the Invigilator. Based thereon, it was contended that these are the duties of Invigilator, therefore, even if the candidate had omitted to mention the language attempted, the Invigilator should have immediately detected the same but it appears that he also faltered in this regard resulting in predicament in which the petitioner find herself.