PCS-J 2022 | Allahabad High Court Seeks UPPSC's Reply On Candidate's Plea Alleging Marking Discrepancies In Mains Exam

The petitioner (Sucheta Rai) claims that fewer marks were awarded to her against her answers in the written examination (General Knowledge and Law Paper-III exams). If one or more marks had been awarded to her, she would have been selected.

Senior Advocate SFA Naqvi, along with Advocates Shashwat Anand, Syed Ahmad Faizan, Ankur Azad, and Saumitra Anand, appearing for the petitioner, argued that she would have secured her selection in the absence of the alleged non-evaluation and discrepancies.

Hearing her plea on Wednesday, a bench of Justice Saumitra Dayal Singh and Justice Donadi Ramesh noted that the final result of the exams was declared on 30.8.2023. Hence, the candidate approached the court with almost 11 months' delay.

The petitioner argued that the issue came to light only recently after UPPSC, by public notice, invited candidates to review their answer sheets. She perused her answer sheets on July 4, 2024, in pursuance of the said notice, after which she approached the High Court.

At this stage, Advocate Nisheeth Yadav, counsel for the UPPSC, states that upon inspection of her answer books on July 4, the petitioner had expressed her satisfaction and had not raised any objection.

However, later, she changed her mind. Accordingly, he objected to the present petition being filed as an afterthought.

Against this backdrop, in view of the UPPSC's stand that it will redress all grievances that may arise (at the end of the candidates' inspection of the answer books) by August 30, 2024, the Court said that no case was made out for granting an interim stay of the results.

Declining to grant an interim stay on the results, the Court, however, ordered UPPSC to submit a counter-affidavit within six weeks, with a two-week period thereafter for Rai to respond.

In a related case, on 19 July 2024, the High Court also demanded a response from UPPSC regarding a petition by another candidate, Shravan Pandey, who is seeking an FIR and a CBI inquiry into the alleged scam and foul play in the UPPCSJ-2022 Mains exam.