Allahabad HC Appoints Rtd. CJ Govind Mathur To Lead Commission To Probe PCS-J Exam 2022 'Irregularities'

A bench of Justice Saumitra Dayal Singh and Justice Donadi Ramesh has urged the commission to file a report by May 31st, 2025, while making the suggestions on the following issues:

• Ways and means to make the evaluation process of UPPCS (J) Examination more responsive to the needs of the selection and more trust worthy for all stake holders including the UPPSC
• Steps to be taken by the Commission to enforce those processes and procedures;
• Mechanisms to be revised/introduced/applied to check departures and deviations from accepted methods, practices and procedures, prescribed by the Commission;
• (Reasons and circumstances that may have prevented the Commission to discover its own mistake/s and offer self correction, in time, i.e. before declaration of the result on 30.08.2023.

With this, the matter has now been listed in the first week of July 2025 in top ten cases, before appropriate bench.

The Division Bench passed this order after hearing Senior Advocate Syed Farman Ahmad Naqvi and Advocate Shashwat Anand, appearing for the petitioners, including Shravan Pandey, the lead petitioner who had alleged that his English answer sheet had been tampered with. In his plea, he had also asserted that the handwriting did not match his own.

In July 2024, the Uttar Pradesh Public Service Commission (UPPSC) admitted to an error in preparing the merit list for the written examination of 50 PCS-J (Provincial Civil Services - Judicial) 2022 candidates.

Apart from the lead petitioner, several other candidates also approached the court with their grievances, seeking issuance of appointment letters based on allegations of inconsistencies and malpractices in marking.

Noting the overlapping nature of these petitions, the Court had underscored the need for a comprehensive inquiry to protect the integrity of judicial appointments.

Importantly, the Court also emphasised that the general practices and procedures of the Commission may require reform and/or upgradation so that standardised and wholly credible evaluation procedures could be ensured.

The Court had also stressed the reformation of the process of evaluation of Answer Booklets and declaration of results needs to be reformed to make it more responsive and credible both in the eyes of the Court as also the society, in general

The Court pointed out the following deficiencies, noting that the same were required to be minimised.

(a) multiple corrections have been made in many Answer Booklets by Examiners - to the marks that may have been originally written;

(b) those corrections made, do not indicate any objective reason for the same. The fact such correction is made gives rise to doubts with and disputes raised by candidates, especially where marks first written are reduced;

(c) some of the corrections made are by way of overwriting made by the Examiners and others where marks first written have been scored out. At times fresh marks awarded have not been countersigned by the Examiner;

(d) wherever marks have been thus corrected, the same have not been countersigned by any independent authority of the Commission, be it be the Chief Examiner or some other responsible authority;

(e) inter-change of Checklist of Master Fake Code was an impermissible blunder

(f) question papers particularly in Law, were more theoretical than practical;

(g) Model Answer Key particularly for the papers in Law, appear to lean to test the theoretical knowledge of the candidates and they do not appear to lay emphasis to test the ability of the candidates to analyse and reason - the basic attributes of a judge;

(h) the Model Answer Key did not provide for scale of marks to be adhered to by all Examiners as may have helped to enforce a uniform scale of marking by considering the level/extent of correctness or error of individual answer responses;

(i) quality of evaluation process and the evaluation made are not of desired quality. Too many corrections have been made by the Examiners, some of them after scoring out the marks originally written and others by over-writing. Not all such corrections have been counter signed by the Examiners in the margin against the answer responses;

(j) where zero ('0') marks have been awarded against any answer response given to a descriptive/subjective answer, no clear marking policy may have preexisted. It may have allowed for a possibility of inconsistent marking standards, applied by different Examiners.

Accordingly, the Court requested Justice Govind Mathur, former Chief Justice, Allahabad High Court, to accept the Commission specifically with respect to the points noted by the Court in the context of all Answer Booklets of Written Examination of UPPCS (J)-2022.

In turn, the UPPSC has been directed to make proper arrangements for the stay and working of the Commission, at Prayagraj and to provide adequate Secretarial help to the Commission, throughout to help the Commission complete its tasks in time, besides providing adequate office space to the Commission within the campus of the UPPSC, Prayagraj.

The commission has also been asked to preserve all Answer Booklets and all documents pertaining to the conduct of U.P.P.C.S.(J) 31 of 32 2022 Written Examination and for production and examination of the same by the Commission.