SUDHIR Vs. STATE OF MAHARASHTRA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) RULE. RULE, returnable forthwith. With the consent of the respective Advocates appearing in all the Petitions, matters are taken up for hearing. As common question of laws and facts are involved, all the Petitions are being disposed of by this common judgment.

(2.) THIS group of Petitions arise out of an action taken by the respondents 2 and 3 cancelling performance of all the petitioners/students in the subject of Chemistry for which they had appeared at XII (Science) {HSC} and declaring them failed in that examination. The action was necessitated because of the report submitted by the Chief Moderator wherein he has opined that large scale malpractice has taken place in Centres in Nanded District, coming under the control of Divisional Board, Latur.

(3.) CHEMISTRY Paper-I (Theory) examination was held on 25th March, 2003. After the examination was over, the papers were distributed to various Examiners; after the examiners examined the papers and allotted the marks, all the papers were then forwarded to the Moderator and as per the practice adopted by the Board, the students securing more than 75% and above, marks their papers were required to be re-checked by the Chief Moderator, for the purpose of moderating. When the papers were sent to the Chief Moderator, he found that 1264 students have written identical answers. The serial numbers of answers given/solved were also the same. He had noticed that mistakes committed by all the students were also the same/common. The Chief Moderator found that the answer to Question No.2(c)(i) answered wrongly by all the students. The mistake which was noticed by the Chief Moderator, he noticed that the said mistake is also in a Book styled as "2003 Model Solutions Board Questions Bank Standard XII" published by M/s. Pradnya Latur Pattern Solution, which was available in the market. After finding this identical mistakes in all the answer scripts which were verified, the Chief Moderator, concluded, prima facie, that all the examinee/students probably wrote the papers/answers on dictation by someone. He also opined that the examinees have used electronic gadget i.e. calculators at the time of solving the problems. He also found that all the answers begin with identical sentence, the mistakes in the problem solved are also the same. The Chief Moderator in all thoroughly checked 1264 answer papers from different lots. The Chief Moderator, then, submitted report to the Chairman/Secretary of respondent no.3, vide letter dated 17th April, 2003. The Board, in turn, considering the report decided to initiate an enquiry. Accordingly, the Board appointed nine Inquiry Officers to make enquiry and to submit the report to the Board.