CHITTA RANJAN MISHRA Vs. UTKAL UNIVERSITY

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petitioner, who appeared at the M.Com. Part-1 Examination, 1997 as a Non-Collegiate Candidate under the Utkal University, has approached this Court for a writ of mandamus and/or an appropriate direction to the University for re-evaluation of the answer papers in Papers-II and IV.

(2.) The petitioner's case, in short, is that he was a brilliant student throughout and he had passed all examinations beginning from H.S.C. till B.Com. (Hons.) in 1st class. However, he appeared as a non-collegiate candidate in M.Com. Part-1 Examination, 1997 under Utkal University bearing Roll No. 219VC6970037 at the Commerce Department of the Utkal University Centre. The M.Com. Part 1 examination consists of four papers each carrying 100 marks and he did very well in all the papers and was expecting to secure more than 60% of the marks in aggregate out of 400 marks. But the result, which was published in the month of April, 1998 revealed that he secured less than 50% of marks which shocked him. A copy of the mark-sheet is annexed as Annexure 5. According to the petitioner, he secured 56 marks in Paper-III and 31 marks in Paper-IV, out of 100 marks each, which was far behind his legitimate expectation, whereas he expected 75 marks out of 100 and 80 out of 100 in Papers-III and IV respectively, as per his performance in the examination and the marks in these two papers do not reflect the true merit of the petitioner keeping in view his good academic career as well as performance in these two papers due to improper, arbitrary, whimsical evaluation of the answer papers by the examiners ignoring the guidelines framed as in the "Central Valuation Manual". It is the claim of the petitioner that under such circumstances, the petitioner has a right to get his answer papers correctly re-evaluated to get appropriate marks according to his performance as he has not got fair deal from the University. It is the claim of the petitioner that on a look at the question, which has been reflected in the writ petition answered by the petitioner, it is manifest that the question No. 1 is a matter dealing with a problem and the rest of the questions are short type to test the perception of the basic idea of the examinee on the subject matter of the papers. The petitioner claims that if the answer scripts of the petitioner would be compared being referred to the relevant contents of the Text Book, he would be entitled to much more marks and as such there are compelling reasons to re-evaluate papers III and IV.

(3.) The petitioner apprehending improper/arbitrary evaluation of the answer scripts in respect of Papers III and IV and thinking that the marks secured by him on the answer to each question might not have been correctly added by the examiner through computer, filed an application before the opp. party No. 1 on 11-5-1998 depositing Rs. 26/- for re-checking of the marks in the said papers, but the opp. parties did not intimate the result of the re-checking of the marks till date, which confirms his apprehension that the answer scripts of Papers III and IV have not been correctly/fairly evaluated or there crept errors into the addition of marks through computer on the answer papers. The petitioner alleged that the examiners, the Chief Examiners and the Scrutinisers did not perform their duties and responsibilities as assigned to them under the Central Valuation Manual to evaluate the answer papers of question papers III and IV.