Petitioner sought quashing of the provisional selection list dated 20.02.2025, constitution of an expert committee to re-assess the revised answer keys for Question No.5 and Question No.20, re-issuance of the provisional selection list, and selection for appointment to the post.
Petitioner claimed that due to allegedly incorrect answer keys, he obtained 58 marks instead of the expected 61 marks, affecting his position in the provisional selection list for Assistant Surgeon (General) pursuant to Notification No.01/MRB/2024.
Petitioner: contended that for Question No.5, the key answer 'a' was wrong and the correct answer was 'b', relying on Davidson's Principles and Practice of Medicine. For Question No.20, the key answer 'd' was wrong and the correct answer was 'b', relying on Harrison's Manual of Medicine and Ganong's Review of Medical Physiology. Argued that the court should direct constitution of an expert committee to reassess the revised answer keys, citing Kanpur University v. Samir Gupta, Harvinder Singh Johal, Rishal, and Commissioner of Police v. Umesh Kumar to illustrate that demonstrably wrong key answers must be corrected.
16. Shri Kacker, who appears on behalf of the University, contended that no challenge should be allowed to be made to the correctness of a key answer unless, on the face of it, it is wrong. We agree that the key answer should be assumed to be correct unless it is proved to be wrong and that it should not be held to be wrong by an inferential process of reasoning or by a process of rationalisation. It must be clearly demonstrated to be wrong, that is to say, it must be such as no reasonable body of men well-versed in the particular subject would regard as correct. The contention of the University is falsified in this case by a large number of acknowledged textbooks, which are commonly read by students in U.P. Those textbooks leave no room for doubt that the answer given by the students is correct and the key answer is incorrect.
17. Students who have passed their Intermediate Board Examination are eligible to appear for the entrance Test for admission to the medical colleges in U.P. Certain books are prescribed for the Intermediate Board Examination and such knowledge of the subjects as the students have is derived from what is contained in those textbooks. Those textbooks support the case of the students fully. If this were a case of doubt, we would have unquestionably preferred the key answer. But if the matter is beyond the realm of doubt, it would be unfair to penalise the students for not giving an answer which accords with the key answer, that is to say, with an answer which is demonstrated to be wrong.
20. Twenty-seven students in all were concerned with these proceedings, out of whom 8 were admitted to the BDS course, 3 were admitted to the MBBS course last year itself in place of the students who dropped out and 5 have succeeded in getting admission this year. Omitting 8 of the respondents who have been already admitted to the MBBS course, the remaining 19 shall have to be given admission as directed by the High Court. If the key answer was not wrong as it has turned out to be, they would have succeeded in getting admission. In view of the findings of the High Court, the question naturally arose as to how the marks were to be allotted to the respondents for the three questions answered by them and which were wrongly assessed by the University. The High Court has held that the respondents would be entitled to be given 3 marks for each of the questions correctly ticked by them, and in addition they would be entitled to 1 mark for those very questions, since 1 mark was deducted from their total for each of the questions wrongly answered by them. Putting it briefly, such of the respondents as are found to have attempted the three questions or any of them would be entitled to an addition of 4 marks per question. If the answer-books are reassessed in accordance with this formula, the respondents would be entitled to be admitted to the MBBS course, about which there is no dispute. Accordingly, we confirm the directions given by the High Court in regard to the reassessment of the particular questions and the admission of the respondents to the MBBS course.
24. Thus in view thereof, the contention of the petitioners in respect of question No. 105 is hereby repelled.
26. According to the respondents, based on the report of the experts committee, the correct answer of this question is option ‘C’ whereas according to the petitioners, the correct answer of this question is option ‘A’.
30. We have heard learned counsel for the parties in this regard and are of the considered opinion that the contention of the respondents is not acceptable. We would again refer to the note appended with the opening sheet of the question paper in which it is provided that “ for filling up the blanks/answering the questions, choose the best option out of the given options” and in our view the best option of question No. 81 by all means would be option ‘A’ i.e. “insanity” which actually was the case of Mc Naughten, who was suffering from some insane delusion and not from intoxication. Thus we propose to give benefit of this question to the petitioners and direct that the answer to this question should be considered as option ‘A’ instead of ‘C’.
19. The key answers prepared by the paper-setter or the examining body is presumed to have been prepared after due deliberations. To err is human. There are various factors which may lead to framing of the incorrect key answers. The publication of key answers is a step to achieve transparency and to give an opportunity to candidates to assess the correctness of their answers. An opportunity to file objections against the key answers uploaded by examining body is a step to achieve fairness and perfection in the process. The objections to the key answers are to be examined by the experts and thereafter corrective measures, if any, should be taken by the examining body. In the present case, we have noted that after considering the objections final key answers were published by the Commission thereafter several writ petitions were filed challenging the correctness of the key answers adopted by the Commission. The High Court repelled the challenge accepting the views of the experts. The candidates still unsatisfied, have come up in this Court by filing these appeals.
17. This judgment has adverted to the course which the recruitment process followed since the publication of an advertisement for selection to the 2013 batch of Constables (Executive)-Male in Delhi Police. The narration of facts demonstrates that a result notifying a list of provisionally selected candidates was initially declared on 13-7-2015 but it was soon found that an error had crept in due to the failure to allocate a bonus mark to every candidate whose height was in excess of 178 cm. The allotment of bonus marks was provided in Standing Order No. 212 of 2011, which necessitated a revision of the results. In the revised result, which was declared on 17-7-2015, certain candidates from the original list were ousted while new candidates came in. Both the respondents were part of the list of successful candidates. Yet, there can be no dispute about the factual position that the recruitment process was yet to be concluded. For one thing, the process of verification of character and antecedents and the ascertaining of medical fitness was yet to be carried out. But apart from this, a set of OAs came to be instituted by unsuccessful candidates before the Tribunal highlighting grievances in regard to the manner in which the answer-key had been prepared. The authorities agreed before the Tribunal to appoint an Expert Committee. Following the submission of the report of the Expert Committee, the results were revised on 22-2-2016.
18. After a decision was taken by the competent authority for revising the result, as many as 123 candidates who had been selected earlier were ousted and 129 new candidates came into the selected list. This process of revising the results was carried out when the recruitment process was yet to be completed for the candidates selected in the result declared on 17-7-2015. This process of the revision of the result was then unsuccessfully challenged in the first batch of OAs before the Tribunal, and subsequently the writ petitions under Article 226 before the High Court were also dismissed [ Sandeep Kumar v. Delhi Police , 2016 SCC OnLine Del 5457] as not pressed. The flip-flops which took place were
The writ petition was filed directly before the High Court under Article 226 of the Constitution by Dr. Akash S, challenging the provisional selection list dated 20.02.2025 for the post of Assistant Surgeon (General) pursuant to Notification No.01/MRB/2024. The petitioner had appeared for the examination on 05.01.2025, and the tentative answer keys were revised on 08.01.2025. Disputing the correctness of the answer keys for two questions, the petitioner sought judicial intervention.
