Unauthenticated internet material cannot be used to deny exam marks, Gujarat HC rules

The Gujarat Public Service Commission (GPSC) issued Advertisement No. 28/2024–2025 for recruitment to the post of Sales Tax Inspector, Class III. The preliminary examination comprised 200 objective questions, with one mark for a correct answer and a negative marking of 0.3 marks for an incorrect, multiple or blank response; candidates securing the cut-off were eligible for the Main Examination.

The petitioner, who appeared in Series B, secured 94.36 marks in the EWS category against the cut-off of 95.59 marks and was consequently excluded from the Main Examination.

The petitioner challenged, among other questions, Question No. 147 concerning Kautilya’s Arthashastra . The final answer key treated only Statement 1—that the work was written in Sanskrit—as correct. The petitioner contended that Statement 2—that the work was a book of economics—was also correct, making Option C the appropriate answer.

During the proceedings, the GPSC acknowledged that the question had been framed using a PDF version of an English translation by R. Shamasastry, but could not identify the source from which the PDF had been downloaded and admitted that it had no written policy for authenticating downloaded reference material.

Pursuant to an interim order, the petitioner was permitted to appear in the Main Examination, subject to the result being kept in a sealed cover.

The Court obtained expert reports regarding the disputed questions. The petitioner subsequently cleared the Main Examination and became the only candidate in the proceedings found eligible for appointment, subject to determination of the disputed question.

Whether a High Court exercising jurisdiction under Article 226 may interfere with an examination answer key or expert opinion, and, if so, in what exceptional circumstances.

Whether a question based on reference material downloaded from the Internet, without a policy for authentication and without availability of the original physical source for comparison, can be treated as a valid question based on credible material.

Whether it was reasonable to frame a general-awareness question from a 1915 edition of a work whose physical original was unavailable to the examining authority and whose digital source was unauthenticated.

Whether, in a general-studies examination involving multiple subjects, the benefit of a debatable question should go to the candidate where the examining body had not established the relevant source, expertise or authenticity of the material relied upon.

The Court applied the principles governing judicial review of examination answer keys under Article 226. Under Kanpur University v. Samir Gupta , the answer key is presumed correct unless it is clearly demonstrated to be wrong, without inferential reasoning, and is such that no reasonable body of subject experts would regard it as correct.

Abhijit Sen v. State of U.P. , Manish Ujwal v. Maharishi Dayanand Saraswati University , Ran Vijay Singh v. State of U.P. , U.P. Public Service Commission v. Rahul Singh , Vikesh Kumar Gupta v. State of Rajasthan and Himachal Pradesh Public Service Commission v. Mukesh Thakur establish that courts should ordinarily defer to academic and expert opinion, should not undertake re-evaluation themselves, and should interfere only in rare cases involving a patent or demonstrable error.

However, Ran Vijay Singh also recognises that the judicial approach is not completely hands-off and permits limited interference in exceptional circumstances.

The Court further applied principles of fairness, reasonableness, legitimate expectation and equal treatment in public recruitment, holding that examination authorities must rely on credible and reasonably accessible source material, particularly in general-awareness examinations.

The Court held that this was not merely a disagreement over the better academic answer. The GPSC’s own affidavits established that the source PDF was downloaded from an unidentified Internet source, that the original physical book was unavailable, and that no written authentication policy existed.

The Court found that Kautilya’s Arthashastra was a broad compendium dealing with several subjects, including economic matters, and that the GCERT and NCERT materials supported the petitioner’s position that the work related to economics.

Consequently, the petitioner’s answer could not be characterised as wrong, while the answer key was not demonstrably the only correct answer.

The Court distinguished the authorities requiring deference to expert opinion because those cases involved established and authenticated source material, whereas the present case involved an unauthenticated digital source and an objectively debatable question.

In a general-studies examination, the authority’s failure to establish a reliable and accessible source undermined the fairness and validity of the question; therefore, the benefit of the ambiguity had to go to the candidate rather than the examining body.

The Court directed the GPSC to treat the petitioner’s answer to Question No. 147 as correct, restore any negative mark deducted for that question, and award the mark prescribed for a correct answer.

The GPSC was further directed to reconsider the petitioner’s aggregate marks as if she had cleared the Preliminary Examination and to include her in the select list or waiting list if she was otherwise eligible on the basis of the Main Examination results.

The Court refused the GPSC’s request for a four-week stay of the judgment.