ARCHITA BHATTACHARYYA Vs. STATE LEVEL ELIGIBILITY TEST COMMISSION

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Heard Mr. A. Bhattacharya, learned advocate for the petitioner. Also heard Mr. S. Deka, learned advocate for the respondent No.1 and Mr. A. Chamuah, the learned advocate for the respondent No.2.

(2.) By this writ petition under Article 226 of the Constitution of India, the petitioner has assailed the declaration of result of State Eligibility Test, 2012 bearing Notification No. SLET/Result/10 dated 06.02.2013, which was conducted by the State Level Eligibility Test Commission, Assam (N.E. Region) (respondent No.1). The petitioner also seeks a direction upon the respondent No.1 for declaring result as per the Information Brochure (Annexure-A). It is projected in this writ petition that the selection criteria were changed after the test was conducted.

(3.) In short, the submission made by the learned advocate for the petitioner is that the petitioner is a Post Graduate Degree holder in Assamese subject. The petitioner fulfilled the requisite conditions for Appointment and Career Advancement of Teachers in Universities and Institutions affiliated to it as provided for by the University Grants Commission in her relevant subjects. It is projected that from time to time the respondent No.1 conducted State Eligibility Test (SET) to consider a candidate eligible for the post of Lecturer. In response to notification dated 18.04.2012 (Annexure-1), the petitioner appeared in the admission test held on 09.09.2012 as a General category candidate. However, when results were declared on 06.02.2013, the petitioner found herself as not selected. The learned advocate for the petitioner has submitted that while the initial notification contained a different selection criteria, but when results were declared, a different criteria was adopted, which was "top 7% for each subject and each category", which was done after the answers were evaluated and at the time of declaring the result. It is submitted that by way of RTI reply, the petitioner was provided with a copy of the result sheet of SET, 2012 and she came to know that she had secured 52 marks in Paper-I, 66 marks in Paper-II and 122 marks in Paper-III and received minimum percentage of marks for each paper for General category candidate and, as such, the petitioner had secured 68.5% marks with qualifying marks in each subject in the said test. It is submitted that the terms and conditions of examination cannot be changed or altered after examination is over.