Case Note & Summary
The petitioner, Mr. Nilesh Gogri, filed a writ petition on behalf of his daughter Yashvi Nilesh Gogri, a highly meritorious student who appeared for the SSC examination conducted by the Maharashtra State Board of Secondary and Higher Secondary Education in March 2016. She secured 95% marks but believed she deserved more in the Science-I paper. After obtaining a photocopy of her answer sheet, she noticed that her answers to Question No. 3(6)(i) and Question No. 4 were not properly evaluated. She applied for revaluation. The revaluating authority corrected the marks for Question No. 4, increasing her percentage from 95% to 95.20%, but refused to change the marks for Question No. 3(6)(i). The question asked students to suggest measures to avoid noise pollution in a classroom. The petitioner's daughter answered: (a) Appoint a prefect or a monitor; (b) Punish the children if they make noise; (c) Give some work to children to occupy their time and keep them busy. Despite these correct and relevant suggestions, she was awarded zero marks for this sub-question. The Court acknowledged the limitations of writ jurisdiction and the general principle of non-interference with expert academic evaluation. However, it found this case to be an exception because the answer was clearly correct and the evaluation was erroneous. The Court noted that the answer given by the student was appropriate and the awarding of zero marks was a mistake apparent on the face of the record. Consequently, the Court directed the respondents to grant one additional mark for Question No. 3(6)(i), which would increase the student's percentage from 95.20% to 95.40%. The Court also ordered that the mark sheet be corrected accordingly.
Headnote
A) Constitutional Law - Writ Jurisdiction - Interference with Academic Evaluation - High Court can interfere in exceptional cases where there is an error apparent on the face of the record - The Court held that although normally it does not interfere with the domain of expert academicians, in the present case the answer given by the student was correct and the evaluation awarding zero marks was erroneous, warranting interference (Paras 4-8).
Issue of Consideration
Whether the High Court in its writ jurisdiction can interfere with the evaluation of an answer sheet by an expert academic body when the answer given by the student is correct but has been awarded zero marks.
Final Decision
The Court allowed the writ petition and directed the respondents to grant one additional mark to the petitioner's daughter for Question No. 3(6)(i) of the Science-I paper, thereby increasing her percentage from 95.20% to 95.40%. The mark sheet was ordered to be corrected accordingly.
Law Points
- Writ jurisdiction
- interference with expert evaluation
- exceptional circumstances
- revaluation
- error apparent on face of record
