SURESH KUMAR Vs. UNIVERSITY GRANTS COMMISSION AND ANOTHER

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This writ petition has been filed with the following prayers:

(2.) The petitioner is a post-graduate having done LLM (Masters in laws) and, as such, qualified for opting teaching as his profession. One of the eligibility conditions, however, is to qualify the National Eligibility Test (NET). Respondent No.2, Central Board of Secondary Education is conducting the test on All India Basis. The eligibility criteria for appearing in the test is that the candidate must have obtained atleast 55% marks in the post graduation. The petitioner having 55% marks in LLM, was eligible for appearing in the test in question and ultimately appeared in the test, which took place in Dec., 2014. The result was declared by the 2nd respondent in June, 2015. The petitioner secured 210 marks out of 350 i.e. 60% of the total marks. The result is Annexure P-1. According to the petitioner, in order to declare successful in the test, the cut-off marks were 212 out of 350. Since the petitioner secured only 210 marks, therefore, fell short only by two marks. The print-out of cutoff marks/merit is Annexure P-2. The 2nd respondent after declaration of the result had given option to the candidates to raise objections to the result so declared subject to deposit of Rs. 5000.00 as fee. The petitioner availed the option so granted and consequently on payment of Rs. 5000.00 to the said respondent by way of draft, he raised objections, Annexure P-3. He objected to the answer to the question Nos. 24, 29 and 60 of paper III, which according to him were wrongly given in the answer key. It is only due to this reason, the petitioner failed to qualify the National Eligibility Test. According to the petitioner, had the questions been rightly answered in the answer key, he would have been declared successful in first go itself.

(3.) The petitioner after making objections kept on waiting for revised result for pretty long time i.e. above five months, but of no avail. It is in the month of Dec., 2015, the result was uploaded by the 2nd respondent again, which remained as it is. According to the petitioner, the 2nd respondent has not made any effort to find out the correct answers to the above-said questions and declared the result again with wrong answers thereto. As per his further case, though he is not sure about the answer to question No.24, however, as regards answers in the key to question Nos. 29 and 60, according to him are 100% incorrect. In order to substantiate the submissions so made, he has placed on record the abstract from the Standard Book of Indian Penal Code written by Rattan Lal and Dheeraj Lal, Annexure P-5 and with respect to question No. 60, the abstract of Art. 1A "Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees" held in 1951, Annexure P-7. He has also annexed to the writ petition, the answer key, Annexure P-6.