SURENDRA NATH Vs. STATE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petitioners herein are doctors holding M.B.B.S. Degrees. They had appeared at the test known as the Pos Graduate Medical Admission Test (hereinafter to be referred to as the PGMAT) held by the respondents in the year 1986 for being admitted to the Post- Graduate Course in Peadiatrics. They failed to qualify for admission to the Post-Graduate Course and have filed the instant writ application for declaring that the PGMAT held in the year 1986 was arbitrary, illegal, capricious and vitiated on account of the fact that more than 30% of the questions were either incorrect or vague or irregular or demonstrably wrong. It has also been averred that apart from wrong questions even the suggested answers were not correct and at times more than one answer was correct. They have, therefore, prayed that the respondents be prohibited from acting in furtherance of or pursuant to the said PGMAT held in the year 1986.

(2.) The facts of the case may be briefly noticed. The petitioners claim to have acquired the M.B.B.S. degree and had also completed the required period of internship and house job for appearing at the PGMAT. The PGMAT is held for making admissions to the Post-Graduate Medical Courses at the various medical colleges of the State of Bihar. Post-Graduate Medical Courses are available in various subjects including Paediatrics. The Post-Graduate Medical Courses in Paediatrics consist of a Degree course which is known as Doctor of Medicine, commonly known as MD and a Diploma course called Diploma in Child Health commonly known as DCH. The test is held every year and in the said test a separate answer-sheet is provided which contains a box against each question and the candidate has to tick-mark one out of the four or five suggested answers in the answer book which he considers to be the correct answer. According to the petitioners, the question paper itself states that only one answer was the correct answer. It is their case that the evaluation is done through computers which are fed with the correct answer for each question. The said correct answer is the one given by the paper-setter in the "key answer". The petitioners contend that based on evaluation of the answer papers, selection is made on the basis of merit by reference to the number of vacancies in a particular course. Persons securing higher marks are admitted to the Post Graduate Degree course, whereas those securing lesser marks are admitted to the Diploma course. This is done after an interview in which only the original documents are verified and no assessment of the candidate is made. The admission is really granted to the Post-Graduate courses on the basis of the performance in the written test.

(3.) The petitioners state that they had applied for the PGMAT 1986 giving their first choice as Peadiatrics. They were issued roll numbers and they duly appeared at the examination held for the purpose on 20th April, 1987. The petitioners contend that the questions asked and the answers suggested were either wrong or meaningless, or were vague or irregular, or demonstrably wrong, and in some cases, none of the answers were correct, and in some cases more than one answer was correct. But in all such cases, only one correct answer had been fed into the computer and whoever gave that answer was awarded the marks for that answer, regardless of the fact whether he had rightly answered the question. The result was that where wrong answers fed into the computer, or more than one answer was the correct answer, candidates whose answers tallied with the answer fed in the computer were awarded marks for that answer, even though in reality the answer fed into the computer was not correct or the question admitted of more than one answer only one of which was fed into the computer. It was therefore submitted that the test that was held was not a test of the knowledge of the candidate concerned, since his performance depended nor upon whether he answered the question correctly, but upon whether his answer tallied with the answer fed into the computer regardless of the fact that the answer so fed into the computer was not correct. The petitioners have referred to various questions and the answers suggested in the answer book. They have claimed to have done so on the basis of their memory as the question papers are not allowed to be taken out of the Examination Hall. It is not necessary at this stage to refer in detail to the questions reproduced by the petitioners and the various answers which according to them were suggested in the answer book, one of which was the correct answer. According to the petitioners it can be demonstrated that either the questions were meaningless or the answers were wrong or that the question admitted of more than one correct answer but marks were awarded only for the answer fed into the computer.