Full Judgment Text
2021:DHC:861-DB
* IN THE HIGH COURT OF DELHI AT NEW DELHI
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% Date of decision: 5 March, 2021
+ W.P.(C) 2994/2021
MAHESH KUMAR ..... Petitioner
Through: Mr. Gaurav Bhardwaj, Adv.
Versus
STAFF SERVICE COMMISSION & ANR. ..... Respondents
Through: None.
CORAM:
HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE RAJIV SAHAI ENDLAW
HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE AMIT BANSAL
[VIA VIDEO CONFERENCING]
RAJIV SAHAI ENDLAW, J.
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1. The petition, (i) impugns the order dated 14 December, 2020 of the
Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT), Principal Bench, Delhi of dismissal
of OA No.2059/2020 preferred by the petitioner; and, (ii) seeks mandamus
to the respondents Staff Selection Commission (SCC) and Ministry of
Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions, Government of India, to grant
the qualifying marks to the petitioner in the Computer Proficiency Test
(CPT) (Module-II) and to consequently grant the requisite post as opted by
the petitioner.
2. The petitioner filed the OA No.2059/2020, pleading that (i) the
petitioner applied for Combined Graduate Level Examination-2017, under
the unreserved and orthopedically handicapped category ; (ii) as per the
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result of the said examination declared on 15 November, 2019, the
petitioner was selected for the post of Auditor in the Department / Offices
of Comptroller & Auditor General of India; (iii) however as per the post
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preference opted by the petitioner, had the petitioner cleared the CPT
Module with 100 qualifying marks, as per his category, he would have
become eligible for the post of Inspector (Central Excise/GST); (iv) the
CPT comprises of three modules i.e. word processing, spreadsheet and
generation of slides; (v) being not satisfied with the result of the CPT, the
petitioner earlier filed W.P.(C) No.2322/2020 in this Court, which, on
objection being taken by the respondents as to the very maintainability
thereof in view of the alternate remedy of approaching CAT being
available, was not pressed and was ordered to be treated as a representation
of the petitioner and directed to be decided within four weeks thereof; (vi)
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the said representation was disposed of vide order dated 22 July, 2020,
stating that, (a) the petitioner had secured 97 marks in the CPT, having
scored 35 marks in Module-II and 62 marks in Module-III; (b) the cut-off in
Module-II and Module-III was fixed as 100 marks, for the category to
which the petitioner belongs; (c) since the petitioner did not secure the cut-
off marks, he was declared not qualified in the CPT and was hence
ineligible for certain categories of posts; (d) the petitioner had requested for
re-evaluation of answer script of CPT (Module-II); (e) the petitioner, vide
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letters dated 20 January, 2020 and 5 February, 2020 was informed that
the CPT answer script of all candidates are evaluated by subject experts and
the request for re-evaluation could not be entertained; (f) in pursuance to
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the order dated 2 March, 2020 in W.P.(C) No.2322/2020, the answer
scripts of the petitioner were re-examined in consultation with the subject
expert and the subject expert, in his / her report had opined that evaluation
of CPT (Module-II) answer script of the petitioner was in order and did not
deserve any revision; (vii) the petitioner sought the report of re-evaluation
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through the medium of Right to Information Act, 2005; (viii) the re-
evaluation, as done, was in contradiction with the questions asked in the
CPT qualifying module and contrary even to the evaluation on the basis of
model answers provided by the respondent No. 1 SSC itself; (ix) though the
petitioner had been asked to join the office of Accountant General (Audit),
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Chhattisgarh by 30 June, 2020, but had sought extension thereof; (x) the
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petitioner challenged the order dated 22 July, 2020 supra qua his
representation, by filing W.P.(C) No.7244/2020 in this Court but which was
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dismissed on 30 September, 2020 with liberty to the petitioner to approach
CAT; (xi) the representation of the petitioner pursuant to directions
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contained in order dated 2 March, 2020 in W.P.(C) No.2322/2020 had
been decided in an arbitrary, non-reasoned and illegal manner; (xii) as per
the re-evaluation report, the deduction of 30 marks is wrong and without
any explanation; (xiii) once an ‘absolute’ formula is applied in MS Excel
sheet, the same does not and by the very definition of ‘absolute’, cannot,
provide a negative mathematical result of the calculation; (xiv) the
explanation provided by the subject expert is tailor made to suit the
respondents; (xv) as per the re-evaluation report, 15 marks had been
deducted for wrong format for calculated cells and which was not
permissible; and, (xvi) re-evaluation has not been done in the correct
manner.
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3. CAT, vide impugned order dated 14 December, 2020 has dismissed
OA No.2059/2020 preferred by the petitioner, reasoning that (i) though it
was the stand of the respondents that there was no provision for re-
evaluation of the result of the examination but in compliance with the
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assurance given before this Court on 2 March, 2020 in W.P.(C)
No.2322/2020, the result of the petitioner was re-examined but no fault was
found therein; (ii) as per the dicta of the Supreme Court, re-evaluation of a
result of a competitive examination cannot be claimed as a matter of right;
(iii) the petitioner had been successful in the examination, though could not
secure the post of his choice; and, (iv) the petitioner had indulged in
excessive litigation at the threshold of his career.
4. We have heard the counsel for the petitioner.
5. What the petitioner wants us to do is to adjudicate, (a) whether the
evaluation of the answer script of CPT taken by the petitioner as part of
Combined Graduate Level Examination-2017 is in order or not; (b) whether
the re-evaluation thereof is in order or not; and, (c) whether the petitioner,
in the CPT is entitled to any marks in excess of 97 marks evaluated by the
examining authorities / subject experts entrusted with the evaluation of the
answer scripts, not only of the petitioner but of all others similarly placed as
the petitioner.
6. The same is not in the domain of the Courts or of the jurisdiction
under Article 226 of the Constitution of India. We have no expertise in
evaluation of the results of an examination least of the CPT. Even in a
subject like law, in which Judges can claim to have knowledge, in Pranav
Verma Vs. Registrar General of the High Court of Punjab and Haryana
(2020) 15 SCC 377, relying on H.P. Public Service Commission Vs.
Mukesh Thakur (2010) 6 SCC 759 and Pramod Kumar Srivastav Vs.
Bihar Public Service Commission (2004) 6 SCC 714, it has been held that
the Court cannot take upon itself the evaluation of the answers given by a
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participant or direct re-evaluation by an independent committee. Moreover,
the answer scripts of all examinees are to be examined objectively and
preferably by the same examiner and / or even if by different examiners, by
following the same criteria. It is not the case of the petitioner that there was
any flaw in evaluation of answer scripts of all candidates who took the
CPT. This Court would not be justified in, even if it was possible for the
Court to examine / evaluate the answer script, to examine / evaluate the
answer script of the petitioner only and which is likely to result in disparity
and open the floodgates, with all others who may have also not qualified in
the CPT wanting their answer scripts also to be evaluated by the Court.
7. The counsel for the petitioner has referred us to Rajesh Kumar Vs.
State of Bihar (2013) 4 SCC 690. We have perused the said judgment and
find that, (i) in that case 13 unsuccessful candidates had assailed the
evaluation of the answer sheets; (ii) during the pendency of the writ petition
before the High Court, appointments were made; (iii) a very small number
of candidates had qualified for appointment and thus a large number of
posts advertised had remained unfilled; (iv) the Single Judge of the High
Court, before whom the writ petition came up, had referred the model
answer key to the experts who found several of the answers in the model
answer key wrong and two of the questions to be wrong and two other
questions were found to have been repeated and another question to have
been only partially printed; (v) based on the report of the said experts, the
Single Judge held that 41 model answers out of 100 were wrong and held
that the entire examination as well as appointments made pursuant thereto
were liable to be cancelled; and, (vi) the Division Bench in appeal modified
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the order of the Single Judge by directing a fresh examination in one of the
papers of the examination only. In the said facts, the Supreme Court
directed re-evaluation on the basis of answer key prepared on the basis of
correct answers prepared by the experts appointed by the High Court.
8. The challenge in the aforesaid case was to the entire examination, as
distinct from the challenge in this petition, only to the evaluation of the
answer script of the petitioner. Else, after the aforesaid judgment, Supreme
Court has repeatedly, in Central Board of Secondary Education Vs.
Khushboo Shrivastava (2014) 14 SCC 523, Ran Vijay Singh Vs. State of
Uttar Pradesh (2018) 2 SCC 357, High Court of Tripura Vs. Tirtha
Sarathi Mukherjee (2019) 16 SCC 663, Bihar Staff Selection Commission
Vs. Arun Kumar (2020) 6 SCC 362 and Vikesh Kumar Gupta Vs. State of
Rajasthan (2021) 2 SCC 309 held that in the absence of any provision for
re-evaluation of answer books in the relevant Rules, no candidate in an
examination has any right to claim or ask for re-evaluation of his marks and
the Court may permit re-evaluation or scrutiny only if it is demonstrated
very clearly, without any inferential process of reasoning or by a process of
rationalization, and only in rare or exceptional cases. It was further held
that the Courts should not re-evaluate or scrutinize the answer sheets of a
candidate as the Court has no expertise in the matter and academic matters
are best left to the academics. It was yet further held that the Courts should
presume the correctness of the evaluation and proceed on that assumption
and in the event of a doubt, the benefit should go to the examination
authority rather than to the candidate. Sympathy or compassion has been
held to be not having any role in the matter of directing or not directing re-
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evaluation of an answer sheet, reasoning that if an error is committed by the
examining authority, the complete body of candidates suffer and the entire
examination process does not deserve to be derailed only because some
candidates are disappointed or dissatisfied or perceive some injustice has
been caused to them by an erroneous question or an erroneous answer; all
candidates suffer equally, though some might suffer more but that cannot be
held since mathematical precision is not always possible. It has also been
held that examination authorities instead of the candidates should not be
under scrutiny and that a massive and prolonged examination exercise
should not be permitted to be derailed, also leading to a number of public
posts remaining vacant. The petitioner herein has not made out any case for
re-evaluation or interference in the examination exercise.
9. We therefore do not find any merit in the petition.
10. Dismissed.
RAJIV SAHAI ENDLAW, J.
AMIT BANSAL, J.
MARCH 05, 2021
‘gsr’..
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