KUNDAN KUMAR Vs. UNION OF INDIA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The office of the Chief Post Master General, Bihar Circle, Patna under the Department of Posts, Government of India conducted a Limited Departmental Competitive Examination (LDCE in short) for promotion to the cadre of P.S. Group-B. The examination was objective type with multiple choice answers. The petitioner was an applicant amongst others. After the examination was held, the provisional keys of the answers were uploaded by the respondents on the departmental website for information to the participants, inviting their feedback/comments/objections on the said provisional keys. Objections were raised by the applicants in respect of 54 questions in paper-I and 49 questions in paper-II. The objections were placed before a Committee of experts. Upon consideration of the objections so-raised, the expert Committee came to a conclusion that question Nos. 10,12,22,35,39,73,81,82,115,116,117,118,120 of A series of Paper-I (total 13) and question Nos. 10,51,107,123 of A series of Paper-II deserved to be dropped from evaluation, the same being either ambiguous or correct answers were not available or more than one correct answers were available resulting in lack of clarity. The expert Committee further, recommended revision in the provisional key answers of question No.57 of Paper-I and question Nos. 30 and 65 of Paper-II of A series. The expert Committee, thus, recommended dropping of 17 questions from evaluation and revision of three (3) model key answers. The recommendation of the expert Committee was accepted by the competent authority and accordingly final result of the LCDE was published and accordingly a final result of LCDE was published on 10/4/2018. The petitioner's name did not figure in the list of selected candidates. Feeling aggrieved the petitioner challenged the said result of the LCDE before the Central Administrative Tribunal, Patna Bench, Patna by filing O.A./050/00429/2018, which came to be dismissed by the Tribunal by a judgment and order dtd. 9/1/2020, which is under challenge in the present writ application preferred under Article 226 of the Constitution of India.

(2.) We have heard Mr. Jayant Kumar Karn, learned counsel for the petitioner and Mr. Rakesh Kumar Sinha, learned counsel for the Union of India.

(3.) Mr. Jayant Kumar Karn, learned counsel appearing on behalf of the petitioner has submitted that had the aforesaid 17 questions been not dropped and there been no revision of the provisional answer keys, based on the provisional answer keys the petitioner would have succeeded in the LCDE. He has contended that the petitioner had correctly answered question Nos. 35, 39, 116 and 120 of Paper-I and question No. 51 of Paper-II which have been illegally deleted from evaluation based on recommendation of the exspert's Committee. He contends that the petitioner has scored 381 marks after illegally deleting some of the questions from evaluation and revising answers in respect of some. Had the same been not done, the petitioner would have scored 391 marks and would have thus, become successful in the examination, 386 being the cut off marks. He has contended that the petitioner had made a representation after publication of result against deletion of some of the questions from evaluation and revision of answer key on 24/4/2018, stating specifically as to how the recommendations of the expert Committee were unjustified. The respondents, he contends refused to consider in correct perspective the petitioner's representation.