Shivnath Tripathi vs The Registrar General High Court - (High Court of Delhi) (27 Nov 2020)

Answer Key are subjected to judicial review only when it is demonstrably wrong

MANU/DE/2145/2020

Education

Present writ petition has been filed seeking directions to the Respondents to modify answers to Question 7, Question 53, Question 78, and to delete Question 134 of the Delhi Higher Judiciary Service Preliminary Examination (Objective Type) held on 2nd February 2020. The issue involved in present case is whether the impugned questions and answer keys are inherently incorrect.

Petitioner submits that, the inaction of the Respondents in not processing Petitioner's objection to the answer key and subsequent notices have caused grave injustice to the Petitioner. He further submits that, no reason has been assigned for not modifying or deleting the answers provided by Respondents.

This Court is of the view that, the Petitioner has sought to reap the benefit of the observations of this Court in Sumit Kumar vs High Court of Delhi without actually following the standard/test of judicial review discussed thereunder. The Division Bench of this Court, held that a candidate could not be penalized for answers at variance with the key only if the answer key was proven to be incorrect beyond doubt. However, it is relevant to note that an answer key cannot be disregarded as being incorrect merely on a doubt. The Court had reiterated the settled law 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.

Present Court is also in complete agreement with the opinion and reasons given by the Committee in its minutes of meeting dated 19th November, 2020. The Committee has rightly concluded that, the impugned questions have been correctly framed and answer keys provided thereto are also correct.

The Petitioner herein has based his arguments on mere conjectures and has failed to elucidate even a single valid ground to challenge the reasoning given by the Committee. Therefore, the Petitioner has failed to demonstrate that the impugned questions and answer keys are inherently incorrect or manifest injustice has occurred in the present case. There is no ground to interfere with the decision of the Committee as there is no evidence of commission of any material error in the present case. Consequently, the present writ petition, being bereft of merit, is dismissed.

Tags : ANSWERS MODIFICATION DIRECTION