Bihar PSC Exam: Single Judge Went Outside Scope Of Judicial Review In Sitting Over Expert Opinion & Directing To Revisit Answer Key, Says Patna HC

The Division Bench of Justices Shivaji Pandey and Partha Sarthy stated, "we are of the view that the interference by the learned Single in the report of the expert committee and giving direction for constitution of fresh expert committee to revisit the answer sheet and consequential direction is outside the realm of judicial review."

The Bench made it clear that if a statute, rule or regulation governing an examination permits the re-evaluation of an answer sheet or scrutiny of an answer sheet as a matter of right, then the authority conducting the examination permits the same. However, if no provision is contained in the governing laws, then the Court may permit re-evaluation or scrutiny only if it is demonstrated very clearly that error has been committed without any inferential process of reasoning or by a process of rationalization and only in rare or exceptional cases.

Background

The preliminary test for the Bihar Public Service Commission was held on 15^th September, 2018. After the completion of the test, the model answers were published on the Commission's website. The Commission had received 1267 objections pertaining to framing of wrong questions, wrong answers in the model answer-sheet or having more than one answer of a question. The original petitioners, in the same manner, had contended that there were discrepancies in four particular answers.

After receiving these complaints, a committee of experts was constituted to examine the said objections. Altogether, answers of 15 questions were found to be wrong. But, the four answers that the original petitioners had claimed to be wrong, were not a part of these 15 answers. Aggrieved by the findings of the committee, the petitioners filed a writ petition in the Patna High Court, seeking a review of the answer key.

The Single Judge presiding over this case rescinded the decision of the committee and issued directions to revisit of the answer key by constituting a fresh committee.

The Respondents in this petition (Bihar Public Service Commission), feeling discontented with the impugned findings of the Single Bench, filed the instant appeal.

Findings

The Division Bench in this case held that the Court does not have the right to re-evaluate or examine the answer sheets of a candidate because a Court does not have any expertise or proficiency in the matter and that "academic matters are best left to academics". The Court reiterated the scope of judicial review enshrined under Article 226 of the Constitution of India and noted that in exceptional circumstances, "the Court would interfere with the matter when, on face of it, the wrong is reflected."

It relied upon the judgement given by the Apex Court in the Ranvijay Singh and Ors. vs. State of Uttar Pradesh and Ors., and stated, "...it has been held that sympathy or compassion does not play any role in the matter of directing or not directing revaluation of an answer sheet. If an error is committed by the examination authority, the complete body of candidates suffers. The entire examination process does not deserve to be derailed only because some candidates are disappointed or dissatisfied or perceive some injustice having been caused to them by an erroneous question or an erroneous answer. All candidates suffer equally, though some might suffer more but that cannot be helped since mathematical precision is not always possible."

The Division Bench clarified, "the Court should not act at all to re-evaluate or scrutinize the answer sheet of a candidate as it has no expertise in the academic matters and academic matters are best left to academics and the Court cannot enter into the domain of the academician as if acting as an appellate body over the opinion of the experts. The Court has little expertise to embark upon and to assess the correctness of the view of experts unless on the face of it, it appears to be absurd or wrong."

The Court made a note of the fact that the committee constituted by the Commission to look into this matter comprised of qualified people, who had an expertise in the field of education and examination. In this context, the Bench ruled that the Single Judge cannot say that the members of this committee did not have adequate knowledge to examine the claims presented by the original petitioners.

After examining the four answers which were alleged to be wrong, the Court stated, "These are science subjects and we do not have expertise to say that we do have wisdom to examine the correctness of the answers as academic matter should be left to the domain of the academician."

While quoting the Supreme Court's decisions in a catena of judgements, the Division Bench expressed, "The Hon'ble Supreme Court also held that the answer should be assumed to be correct unless it is proved to be wrong. If there is doubt, the benefit should go to the examining body."

It added, "the Hon'ble Supreme Court in Ran Vijay Singh's case (supra) has categorically held that the Court should not at all re-evaluate or scrutinize the correctness of key answer as it has no expertise in the matter and academic matters are best left to academician."

In its concluding remarks, the Bench stated that if the Courts permit review of answer sheets, then it is not sure that there will be end of litigation rather, in all possibility, there will be further round of litigation as those who will be affected by the revision of result will definitely come before the Court. "Again, second round and third round of litigation will start and litigation will not come to an end in near future," it remarked.

It added,

"The candidates have invested their time and effort, prepared themselves and declared successful in the preliminary examination and equally the examining body also put their tremendous effort in conducting the examination, that should not go waste and unless there is blatant error in the key answers as well as in the opinion of the expert, it will be unjustified to interfere with the view of experts, otherwise it will be nothing but sitting over the opinion of the expert as an appellate authority, which will be outside the scope of the judicial review."

The Court thus overruled the impugned order of the Single Judge and disposed of the appeal.

Related News

A Supreme Court Bench comprising Justices L. Nageswara Rao, Hemant Gupta and Ajay Rastogi recently observed that though re-evaluation can be directed if rules permit, the practice of re-evaluation and scrutiny of the questions by the courts which lack expertise in academic matters is to be deprecated. The Court observed that assessment of the questions and answer key of public examinations by the courts itself is not permissible.

In another judgement, the Delhi High Court Bench comprising of Justices Manmohan and Sanjeev Narula observed that an answer key cannot be disregarded as being incorrect merely on a doubt. In a case relating to Delhi Higher Judiciary Service Preliminary Examination, the Court stated that there is always a presumption of correctness regarding the answer key and it may be subject to judicial review only when it is "demonstrably wrong" i.e. it must be such as no reasonable body of men well-versed in the particular subject would regard it as correct.

Case Title: Bihar Public Service Commission & Ors. v. Ashish Kumar Pathak & Ors.

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