AARTI Vs. STATE OF HARYANA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) By this judgment, Civil Writ Petition No. 4822 and 4827 of 2021, involving the common questions of fact and law, shall stand disposed of. Learned counsels, appearing for the petitioner(s) as well as the State of Haryana, are ad idem that both these writ petitions can be disposed of by a common judgment.

(2.) For facility, the facts are being taken from Civil Writ Petition No. 4822 of 2021. The petitioner applied for the post of Art and Craft Teacher pursuant to a recruitment notice issued on 20.07.2006. Due to various litigations, there was a delay in the finalisation of selection. The written examination was held on 31.01.202. The multiple choice questions were given in OMR sheets and the result thereof was declared on 23.02.2021. The OMR sheets of the petitioners were found smudged/double blackened and therefore, their candidature has been rejected. It is not in dispute that the candidates, through various instructions, were cautioned that if the OMR answer sheets are found with use of eraser, nail, blade, white fluid/whitener etc. or found to have been smudged, scratched or damaged, then the same shall be liable to be cancelled.

(3.) The question as to whether the rejection of the entire answer sheet of a candidate is appropriate or only the question which is found to be smudged or double blackened is required to be kept out of consideration. This question has already been answered by the Court in Anshu and Others v. State of Haryana and Others (Civil Writ Petition No. 22918 of 2016, decided on 21.12.2016). By an elaborate judgment, the Court examined the instructions issued and found that the OMR answer sheet shall be liable to be rejected in entirety. A Letter Patent Appeal against the judgment of learned Single Judge was also dismissed on 20.01.2017 in Anshu and Others v. State of Haryana and Others (Latter Patent Appeal No. 92 of 2017) . A Special Leave to Appeal (Civil) No. 8430 of 2017 filed against the judgment of the LPA Bench was also dismissed by the Supreme Court on 27.03.2017.