The High Court dismissed writ petitions challenging the recruitment authority's decision to publish only one master question paper and primary key. The Court, after verifying the records, held that definite SETs were provided to candidates, making the claim of illegal nondisclosure untenable.
This page shows the compact analysis of this judgement. The full analysis — procedural history, issue-by-issue holdings with ratio and obiter, advocates, and paragraph-level evidence for every claim — is being added to the record in batches and will appear here when this judgement has been through it.
THE HON’BLE SRI JUSTICE ABHINAND KUMAR SHAVILI WRIT PETITION NOs.1278, 1308 & 2919 OF 2019
COMMON ORDER:
Since the issue involved in these writ petitions is one and the same, these writ petitions are heard together and are being disposed of by this common order.
The petitioners are challenging the action of the respondents in publishing one Master Question Paper SET and one Master Primary Key instead of publishing all SETs used in the examination centres and respective Primary Keys, once examination is concluded by the 2nd respondent for the recruitment vide notification dated 31.08.2018 and testing remembrance of the candidates while assessing the marks they got, as unjust, illegal and violative of Articles 14, 16 and 21 of the Constitution of India and sought a consequential direction to the 2nd respondent to make available all the question papers of Paper-I and Paper-II, which the candidates used in examination centres, online as the respondents did in case of OMR answer sheets.
Learned counsel for the petitioners contended that when the written examination was conducted on 10.10.2018, the question booklets given to the candidates do not contain any SET number and consequently the petitioners were not in a position to verify their marks with the Master Primary Key published by the respondents. Learned counsel further submits that the petitioners were confident of securing more than 80% marks, but they were disappointed to know that they could secure only 30% to 40% marks in the written examination conducted by the 1st respondent.
This Court, having heard the arguments of the learned counsel for the petitioners, had earlier directed the learned Special Government
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Pleader appearing fore the Advocate General to produce the records and, as such, the learned Special Government Pleader had produced the record and demonstrated before this Court that the petitioners were given definite SET of question papers and the same was also shown to the learned counsel for the petitioners.
In view of the fact that definite SET of question papers were given to the petitioners at the time of examination, the contention of the petitioners that they were given question papers with no SET number appears to be incorrect.
In view of the above observations, there are no merits and these writ petitioners are liable to be dismissed.
Accordingly, these writ petitions are dismissed. No costs.
Consequently, miscellaneous petitions pending, if any, shall stand closed.
____________________________ ABHINAND KUMAR SHAVILI, J
Dated: 14th February, 2019 v v
2 issues framed by the court
Whether the action of publishing only one Master Question Paper and one Master Primary Key instead of all SETs used in examination centres violates Articles 14, 16 and 21 of the Constitution.
Whether the petitioners were provided with definite SET numbers in the question booklets during the written examination.
1 provisions across 1 enactments
Unknown Petitioners
Notification Date 31.08.2018
2nd Respondent
1st Respondent
Abhinand Kumar Shavili
As recorded by the court registry
Judgements on the same questions, provisions and authorities, from every court
