UP civil judge exam 2022: Allahabad High Court orders parties not to publish affidavits

The Allahabad High Court on Monday directed the parties not to publish affidavits pertaining to the ongoing investigation into unfair means adopted during the Uttar Pradesh Judicial Service Civil Judge (Junior Division) Examination, 2022. [Shravan Pandey v State & Ors].A Bench of Justice Saumitra Dayal Singh and Justice Donadi Ramesh ordered,"Until further orders of this Court, parties are restrained from publishing any part of the affidavit exchanged pertaining to the award of marks by the Commission. Also, for that purpose, office may not issue certified or other copy of the facts disclosed in the compliance affidavit filed by the Chairman, UP Public Service Commission. Any party flouting the orders will be dealt with accordingly.".The Court also granted the Uttar Pradesh Public Service Commission (UPPSC) three days to file a reply to the supplementary affidavit.The matter will be taken up next on July 19. .The 2022 exam was announced in December and preliminary exams were conducted in February 2023, followed by the mains examination in May. Subsequently, interviews were held, and the final results were declared in August 2023. Further, the marks scored by the candidates were made public in November 2023.Dissatisfied with the marks awarded to him, petitioner Shravan Pandey filed a request under the Right to Information Act (RTI Act) in January 2024 seeking details of the distribution of marks in the six papers.After he came to know that he had received only 47 out of 200 in the English paper, he prayed that his answer sheets be also shown to him.When he went through the answer sheets, he found that they did not have his handwriting. He also discovered that the answers on the Hindi paper's answer script were "scored off" in the final 3-4 pages. This prompted Pandey to approach the High Court..According to an affidavit filed by the UPPSC, approximately 50 answer sheets of candidates who appeared for the mains exam in August 2023 were exchanged. In the previous hearing, the UPPSC told the High Court that it had found five officials liable for the mishap, and had suspended three of them.The High Court had noted that the matter could not be dealt with in a light-hearted manner and urged the UPPSC to make the necessary corrections expeditiously.Advocates Dhananjai Rai and Vibhu Rai appeared for the petitioner.Advocate Nisheeth Yadav represented the UPPCS..[Read Order]