NAYANMONI GOGOI Vs. STATE OF ASSAM, REPRESENTED BY THE SECRETARY TO DEPARTMENT OF HIGHER EDUCATION, GOVERNMENT OF ASSAM DISPUR, GUWAHATI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) All the five writ petitions having raised common questions of law on identical facts were taken up for consideration together and are being disposed of by this common judgment and order.

(2.) The writ petitioners in the five cases under consideration appeared in the common competitive examination for admission to the first year M.B.B.S. course in the Medical Colleges of the State of Assam for the academic session 2005-2006. The examinations were held on 23rd and 24th of May 2005 and the result thereof was declared on 10th of June, 2005. The results of the each of the writ petitioners in the cases under consideration were not complete inasmuch as in one subject or the other, as the case may be, the answer scripts of the petitioners were not evaluated on the ground that in the said answer scripts the set number was not indicated. Specifically, in the case of the petitioner in W.P. (C) No. 4689/2005 it is the Biology paper which was not evaluated whereas in the case of the writ petitioners in W.P. (C) No. 4414/2005, W.P. (C) No. 4474/2005 and W.P. (C) No. 4475/2005 it is the Chemistry paper which was not evaluated. In the case of the petitioner in W.P. (C) No. 4473/2005 the paper in Physics was not evaluated. It must be noticed at this stage that in the result sheets of the writ petitioners against the aforesaid subjects, there was a remark to the following effect "N.S.T." The abbreviation 'N.S.T. has been explained by the University to mean 'no set indicated'. The consequences of the aforesaid action having virtually made the petitioners ineligible for admission the instant recourse to the writ remedy has been made.

(3.) Before proceeding to take note of the respective arguments advanced by the learned Counsels for the contesting parties it will be necessary for this Court to briefly put on record the procedure the format of the competitive examinations held in which examinations the petitioners have participated. In the answer scripts issued to the candidates, on which, the answers in response to the questions were required to be marked by the candidates, apart from mention of the answer script number and the roll number, the candidates were also required to make a mention of the set number which was allotted to the candidates. The expression 'set number' has to be understood in the context of the particular set in which the question paper was received by a candidate. A total of 100 common questions in the objective type were posed to all the candidates. To avoid any possibility of copying, the 100 common questions were arranged in five different formats or sets. Each set of questions had a corresponding set of predetermined model answers and the model answers in each set were programmed in the computer for evaluation of the answer scripts. It was, therefore, necessary for a candidate to record his set number in the particular subject so as to enable evaluation of the answer scripts through the computer. If an answer script did not contain the set number, naturally, evaluation of the same through the computer.was not possible. This is what had happened to the petitioners in each of the cases giving rise to a situation where at least one answer script of each of the writ petitioners in the subjects already noted remained unevaluated as the petitioners had omitted to mention the set numbers in the answer scripts of the subjects in question.