NAVIN KUMAR Vs. STATE OF BIHAR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) After having been declared successful in the preliminary test, the petitioner had appeared in the main (written '60th to 62nd Combined Competitive Civil Services Examination') held by the Bihar Public Service Commission (hereinafter referred to as 'the B.P.S.C) as a candidate belonging to BC category. He was declared successful for the interview but his name could not figure in the final merit list for recommendation by the B.P.S.C. in its result published on 01.02.2019 since the petitioner was found to have scored 582 marks as against the cutoff marks of 584 fixed for the BC category. The final merit list was published by the B.P.S.C. on the basis of marks obtained by respective candidates in the main (written examination) and the interview taken together.

(2.) The candidates declared finally selected on the basis of said examination have already been appointed. The petitioner had chosen Public Administration as his optional subject. He filed an application under the Right to Information Act, 2005 for the supply of answer sheets of both the papers of general studies as well as the optional subject namely Public Administration which were supplied to him on 05/07/2019.

(3.) It is the petitioner's grievance that in the Public Administration subject, in respect of the first part of question no. 11, he was initially awarded 26 marks by the examiner, which was penned through and reduced to 24. For the second part of the said question, he was awarded six marks and thus firstly 26+6 was written which was changed to 24+6 without any initials put by the examiner. It is the petitioner's case that had the alternation not been done and the petitioner's marks originally awarded against the first part of question no. 11 was not reduced to 24, the petitioner would have been declared successful, as he would have achieved the cutoff. Similarly, in respect of question no. 7, for the second part, he was originally awarded 7 marks which too was penned through and brought down to 6 marks. He was thus awarded 22+6=28 marks for question no. 7 instead of 22+7=29. There are averments in the writ application of not giving full marks for some of his answers which were accurate and correct, in general studies paper 1. With the aforesaid fact asserted in the writ application, the petitioner has filed the present writ application seeking a direction to the B.P.S.C. to declare him successful after re-evaluating and recalculation his answer sheets and to recommend to the State Government his name for appointment.