Chhattisgarh High Court Rejects Challenge Against Civil Judge (Entry Level) Exam, 2020

A Single Bench of Justice P. Sam Koshy returned a finding that the alleged procedural lapses in conducting the exam could not be said to have had a prejudicial effect on the candidates.

The Bench further opined that merely because 9 questions were deleted from the final answer key does not mean that the interest of students is affected. It held that deletion of questions and distribution of marks to all candidates on pro rata basis will not vitiate the examination.

Reliance was placed on Chhattisgarh Professional Examination Board v. Vikram Singh Rana & Ors., where in a similar set of facts it was held that,

"By virtue of the deletion of 18 questions, which were found as not correct or sustainable because of ambiguity or due to availability of more answers or having been framed wrongly without giving proper answer, the marks available in respect of such 18 questions (one mark each) have been re-distributed to the remaining 132 questions (out of total of 150) as per the formula stipulated in this regard. All the candidates, who participated in the Examination, are either 'beneficiary' or 'not a loser' in any manner and hence there cannot be any valid or sustainable grievance or cause of action for the writ petitioners."

The said Judgment also made it clear that,

"the writ petitioners cannot contend or insist that the question paper should carry a minimum of 150 questions always. No provision of law or precedent is brought to the notice of this Court that, if the multiple choice questions get reduced (from 150 to 132 in the instance case, with equitable distribution of marks to all the candidates in respect of remaining questions), it will vitiate the exercise."

Background

In the instant case, the Chhattisgarh Public Service Commission published the model answers for the Preliminary Examination in November 2020. Objections were called from all the candidates and the final amended model answers were declared the next month.

When the final amended answers were published, the CGPSC deleted 9 questions holding that they were contrary to the available sources and literature, and the answer to one question was amended.

This led to filing of instant batch petitions on the ground that CGPSC has wrongly deleted the 9 questions, leading to the Petitioners being put to a substantial loss as the awarding of marks after the deletion of 9 questions does not show the awarding of marks to be from 100 Marks.

It was argued that the answers given in the model answers initially published by the CGPSC were, proper, legal and logical and justified and there was no scope of any alteration to the said answers in any manner.

The Petitioners are also raised following issue on the procedure of conducting the examination, which allegedly put them to a mental strain in the course of attempting the questions:

• In the Question Paper that was circulated, the valuation procedure prescribed reflected that there shall be negative marking for each wrong answer, which initially was not reflected in the Advertisement. This made the candidates quite apprehensive in attempting the answers fearing negative marking and it was only after a considerable period of time in the course of examination that the authorities passed on an instruction that there shall be no negative marking;
• In the Advertisement, it was reflected that 100 Questions will carry a maximum of 100 Marks however, in the examination 200 Marks for 100 Questions were allotted.
• Though in the Question Paper the time schedule showed the examination to be conducted from 10:00 AM to 1:00 PM but in fact the time granted was only for 2hours that is from 10:00 AM to 12:00PM which again created a lot of confusion in the mind of the participants;

The Petitioners argued that the Maxim "Sublato Fundamento Cadit Opus" should be brought into force and it should be held that since the foundation of conducting of the examination itself was erroneous, all subsequent process also has to be deemed to be erroneous and it would stand collapsed and vitiated without any further necessity of judicial scrutiny in respect of subsequent proceedings.

Findings

At the outset, the Court observed that the procedural lapses indicated by the Petitioners could not have any prejudicial effect on their performance. It noted,

"this Court does not find any substantial hamper and prejudice occurring in the course of attending the examination by the candidates on the procedural front.

Another reason for the contentions raised by Petitioners deserving rejection is the fact that from a large section of many thousands candidates who had appeared, the grievance has been raised only by these 52 Petitioners and of which also except for one Petitioner, not a single candidate had raised objection immediately after the examination was conducted so far as the deviation of the procedural part is concerned."

Being specific to each procedural lapse pleaded by the Petitioners, the Bench returned the following findings:

1. From the records submitted by the CGPSC before this Court, it clearly reflect that the Nodal Officers had taken all steps promptly at all the three centers by making announcement that there shall not be any negative marking and the instructions given in respect of negative marking in the question papers were to be treated as cancelled.

2. The contention of Petitioners that in the Advertisement the maximum of 100 Marks for 100 Questions being reflected whereas in the examination 200 Marks for 100 Questions were shown this as such would not have prejudiced the claim of the Petitioners in any manner as only by increasing the marks for each question, the total marks or the percentage of marks would not get affected in any manner.

3. As regards the controversy so far as time schedule of 3 hours is concerned, the question paper specifically carried a column where apart from the time schedule the question paper also had duration of examination reflected and in the duration column it was specifically mentioned that the duration shall be that of 2hours. This also was specifically intimated to the candidates appearing in the examination.

Coming to the issue of deletion of 9 Questions, the Court observed that the decision was taken by a Senior Level Expert Committee comprising of three senior Judicial Officers in the State of Chhattisgarh and three Judicial Officers.

It observed,

"the findings so arrived at by the Committee was based on sufficient reasonings and the same cannot be in any manner held to be either arbitrary or contrary to law. Since the Expert Committee has given its report after due consideration of the subject matter and based on cogent materials available with them, therefore, merely because another view was possible or another view could had been taken does not mean that the report of the Expert Committee is without any basis or contrary to law."

Further the Bench relied on a recent decision of the Supreme Court in Ran Vijay Singh & Ors. v. State of Uttar Pradesh & Ors., (2018) 2 SCC 357, holding that Courts should not at all re-evaluate or scrutinize the answer sheets of a candidate. The Top Court had observed,

"Court has no expertise in the matter and academic matters are best left to academics; The Court should presume the correctness of the key answers 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"

Case Title: Prafull Kumar Tiwari v. State of Chhattisgarh & Ors. (and connected petitions)

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