Delhi HC Notice To Registrar As DJSE-2017 Aspirants Challenge Marking System In Prelims, Seek Stay On DJSE Mains

The Delhi High Court on Tuesday issued notice to its Registrar-General on a plea moved by two women who took the Delhi Judicial Services Examination 2017 demanding that the result of the preliminary examination be declared afresh and the Mains examination be stayed as they alleged glaring discrepancies in the marking of their answer sheets and the manner in which the final list was issued.

The petitioners, including a Central government employee, moved the high court through advocate Prashant Manchanda seeking direction to the Registrar General, Delhi high court, to evaluate their answer sheets/marks afresh based on the corrections/deletion/amendments to the questions, answer keys after making requisite corrections.

While the petitioners had been unsuccessfully pressing for the OMR sheets through RTI pleas, when the petition was taken up for hearing on Tuesday, the same were produced before the court.

In the instant case, the petitioners appeared in the preliminary exam on May 6. Petitioner No.1 got Booklet Series C whereas Petitioner No.2 got Booklet Series ‘D’.

On May 11, the model answer key was uploaded on the website of Delhi High Court and also objections were invited on any answers mentioned in the said answer key. The petitioners and other candidates filed certain respective objections through the link given on the website but only some of the objections were considered by the Registrar-General and the revised answer key was uploaded on the website on June 4 along with the complete result.

“…as per the list dated on 04.06.2018, the Petitioner No.1 was awarded 126.50 Marks out of 200. The corrected answer key (SET ‘C’) had deleted question no. 30, 42, 77, 95, 96, 97, 179 and one mark each was awarded against them and question 186 and 111 had their options corrected. Since the Petitioners had already marked their answers on the question paper as well, they realized on tallying the answer with model answer sheet that they had in fact scored marks much more marks than 126.50.

“…the Petitioner No.2 had secured 107.75 marks out of 200 whereas the qualifying marks for the reserved category candidates was 110 out of 200 marks,” shared Manchanda.

“To the utter shock Petitioner Nos.1 and 2 found that there are various discrepancies in the marks awarded they have scored higher marks than that awarded by the Respondent even as per the model answer key and the amended answer key (which was itself uploaded by Respondent) and even in the revised answer key, there are questions which are given wrong options or wrong answer which curtailed the marks of the Petitioners and this aspect has not been considered at all and as such re-evaluation of the answer sheet is sought for,” said the petition.

The petitioners have listed the questions which they say have wrong options or wrong answers.

The court found merit in the petition which is now listed for July 26.