SHWETA DHULL Vs. STATE OF HARYANA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This order of mine shall dispose of 28 Civil Writ Petitions bearing No.15002 of 2019 (Shweta Dhull & others Versus State of Haryana & another), 16596 of 2019 (Ratish Moar & others Versus State of Haryana & another), 16184 of 2019 (Wazir Dalal Versus State of Haryana & others), 16355 of 2019 (Vibhu Pratap Singh & others Versus State of Haryana & another), 15314 of 2019 (Naman Sharma Versus State of Haryana & another), 16548 of 2019 (Amit Kumar & others Versus State of Haryana & another), 16653 of 2019 (Deepak & others Vs. Haryana Public Service Commission), 16568 of 2019 (Hardeep Singh Versus State of Haryana & another), 15331 of 2019 (Ayush Goyal Vs. State of Haryana & another), 17339 of 2019 (Pooja Choudhary Versus State of Haryana & another), 17340 of 2019 (Dinesh Versus State of Haryana & another), 17366 of 2019 (Gagan Deep & others Vs. State of Haryana & another), 15063 of 2019 (Bhupinder & another Versus State of Haryana & another), 17111 of 2019 (Aastha Chauhan Versus State of Haryana & another), 17810 of 2019 (Amit Kumar & another Versus State of Haryana & another), 17815 of 2019 (Vivek & another Versus State of Haryana & another), 16706 of 2019 (Neha Chandel Versus State of Haryana & another), 16765 of 2019 (Vaibhav Versus State of Haryana & others), 17374 of 2019 (Pooja Dhaka Versus State of Haryana & another), 16359 of 2019 (Amar Singh & others Versus State of Haryana & another), 15835 of 2019 (Randeep Malik Versus Haryana Public Service Commission), 17477 of 2019 (Rajbir Singh & others Versus State of Haryana & another), 14739 of 2019 (Ashwani Kumar Versus State of Haryana & another), 18682 of 2019 (Rahul Geer Versus State of Haryana & another), 19534 of 2019 (Rohit Sharma Versus State of Haryana & another), 19794 of 2019 (Renu Versus State of Haryana & another), 19931 of 2019 (Sugandha Versus State of Haryana & others) and 17051 of 2019 (Nisha Versus State of Haryana & another),as the common questions of facts are involved. In all the writ petitions, challenge has been laid for setting-aside the final result dated 21.05.2019 (Annexure P-11) declared by the Haryana Public Service Commission for Haryana Civil Services [Executive Branch] and other Allied Services Preliminary Examination-2017 being totally vitiated owing to numerous, pervasive mistakes and wrong setting of question papers. The facts are being taken from CWP No.15002 of 2019.

(2.) Respondent No.2-Haryana Public Service Commission (for short, Commission) caused an Advertisement No.3 of 2018-19 dated 02.08.2018 seeking recruitment of 166 posts of Haryana Civil Service (Executive Branch) and other Allied Services and the last date for submission of the applications was fixed as 04.09.2018. As per Clause 6 of the advertisement, the Scheme of Examination envisaged, a preliminary examination meant only for the purpose of screening/short-listing, consisting of two papers, i.e., General Studies and Civil Services Aptitude Test with negative marking. The advertisement also specified that the question papers would be set bilingual, i.e., in English and Hindi and candidates 12 times the number of advertised posts would be invited for main examination. The aforementioned advertisement was issued under the Haryana Civil Service [Executive Branch] Amendment Rules, 2016 (for short, 2016 Rules), where under the Scheme of Examination, 200 marks were kept for preliminary examination, 600 marks for main written examination and 75 marks for personality test. The preliminary examination would be objective type/ multiple choice consisting of the aforementioned subjects. The Civil Services Aptitude Test (CSAT) envisaged the following parameters:-

(3.) Petitioners submitted their applications in the prescribed format in order to participate and appear in the examination. In the Civil Services Aptitude Test Paper, fifteen (15) questions were completely out of syllabus and in General Studies, the questions were blatantly erroneous as their construction had no sense. In other words, few of the questions had more than one correct answer and even in some the correct answer was not mentioned in the options. The candidates, being apprehensive of negative marking, did not attempt the aforementioned questions having two answers. To overcome the hurdle, written representations, Annexure P-7 (Colly) were made to respondent No.2 but no action was taken.