GOVERNMENT OF ANDHRA PRADESH Vs. N VENKATESWARA RAO

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Respondents 1 and 2 in Writ Petition No. 9092 of 1993 are the appellants in this Writ Appeal. Petitioners 1 to 5 in the writ petition are respondents 1 to 5 in this writ appeal. Respondent No.3 in the writ petition is respondent No.6 in this writ appeal. Convenience suggests that we should adopt the nomenclature assigned to the parties in the writ petition while we refer to them in the Course of this pronouncement of ours.

(2.) The petitioners have come to this Court by way of the writ petition putting forth the following prayer:

(3.) We heard Mr. N. Bhaskar Rao, learned Counsel appearing for respondents 1 and 2 / appellants herein and also Mr. B. Adinarayana Rao, learned Counsel appearing for petitioners 1 to 5/respondents 1 to 5 herein. The contention of learned Counsel for respondents 1 and 2 is that there is no provision made in the concerned statutory rules and regulations for re-valuation of the answer papers and hence, the learned single Judge ought not to have directed revaluation as he did. Learned Counsel for respondents 1 and 2 would submit that this Court shall not substitute its own views in the place of those of the professional men who did the valuation, and this tendency has been discouraged by the apex Court and in this behalf, learned Counsel for respondents 1 and 2 would place reliance on the pronouncement of the apex Court in Maharashtra State Board of Secondary and Higher Secondary Education vs. Paritosh Bhupesh Kunnarsheth. As against this, Mr. B. Adinarayana Rao, learned Counsel for petitioners 1 to 5 would submit that the rules and regulations do not inhibit re-valuation and hence re-valuation could be directed by this Court and the learned single Judge found ccertain infirmities with reference to revaluation and we must adopt the view of the learned single Judge on the question and should not disturb his order. That the rules and regulations governing the issue are statutory, has not been disputed before us by the learned Counsel for petitioners 1 to 5. If the rules and regulations are statutory in character, their full vigour and force cannot be scuttled down by the Court either supplementing to them or subtracting from them. Here we must remember that what has not been permitted by the statutory rules and regulations must be taken to have been prohibited. Whatever be the wisdom of the Court on the issue, it cannot assume the role of supplementing statutory rules and regulations. This cardinal rule, we should not lose sight of. If this is so, the argument advanced by the learned Counsel for Petitioners 1 to 5 that merely because there is no inhibition expressed in the statutory rules and regulations with regard to re-valuation of the answer papers, the Court should give a direction to that effect, does not at all appeal to us and on the other hand, if we accept this line of thinking for any implementation, we are of the view, we will be violating a cardinal rule as recapitulated above.