ANKUR ANAND Vs. STATE OF BIHAR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THERE are altogether eight petitioners before this court, one each in C.W.J.C. Nos. 8509/98 and 10041/98 and six in C.W.J.C. No. 8767/98. All the eight petitioners appeared in the Bihar Combined Entrance Competitive Examination, 1998 seeking admission in the different Medical Colleges in the State. In the result published by the Board the petitioners' names were included in the list of the selected candidates in their respective reservation categories; some of the petitioners, in fact, secured fairly high positions in the merit list in their reservation categories.

(2.) THE candidates selected for admission on the basis of the competitive examination were called for counselling. The counselling of the candidates for M.B.B.S. Course was held on September 7, 8 and 9, 1998. In counselling the authorities ordinarily verified the genuineness and bona fide of the selected candidate and the eligibility certificates and documents produced by him. It appears that before counselling for M.B.B.S. course began on September 7, 1998 it was reported to the respondent authorities that some of the candidates had managed their selection through impersonation. According to the reports in some cases the candidate himself did not appear in the test but someone else impersonating the concerned candidate wrote the examination. On receipt of this information the respondent authorities did what they could at that stage to find out and isolate the imposters among the genuine candidates. They devised a simple but effective method based on comparison of hand writings. Each of the candidates called for counselling (for M.B.B.S. Course) was given dictation of a few sentences or words from his own answer sheet of the selection examination. The specimen hand writing thus obtained from each of the candidates was compared with the hand writing in his answer sheet for determining his genuineness. By this method the respondents came to find that the specimen handwritings of these petitioners (and a few others) were so vastly different from the hand writings in their respective answer sheets that the petitioners could not possibly be the writers of the answer sheets on the basis of which their selection was made. It therefore followed that these petitioners (and a few others) had secured their selection by fraud and in place of each of the petitioners some imposters had appeared in the selection test impersonating for the concerned petitioners. In all such cases the respondent authorities denied admission to the concerned candidates. A criminal case was also instituted in which those candidates were named as accused. The eight petitioners before this court are among the candidates who were denied admission by the respondent authorities in the aforesaid circumstances. They have come to this court challenging the action of the respondent authorities and seeking a direction to them to allow them admission in M.B.B.S. Course on the basis of their selection in the competitive examination.

(3.) MR . P.K. Shahi, learned counsel appearing for the Controller of Examination has filed counter affidavits in each of the three cases. Through the counter affidavits he has brought on record photo copies of the specimen hand writings of each of the petitioners, the relevant pages from their answer sheets and the relevant portions of their application form. At this stage, it would be convenient to sort out the relevant materials concerning each of the petitioners which are as follows: