Delhi HC directs Registrar General to re-draw result of Delhi Judicial Service Examination, 2018 prelims

The Delhi High Court has directed its Registrar General to re-draw the result of the preliminary examination of the Delhi Judicial Service Examination, 2018..The order was passed by a Division Bench of Justices Vipin Sanghi and Prateek Jalan in petitions challenging seven questions that were part of the preliminary examination..The petitioners had moved the Court after discovering that the questions and the answers published on the High Court’s website had several errors..Question Nos. 114,141,120,191,23,183 and 138 were challenged as being erroneous. It was the petitioners’ case that the said questions were wrongly framed and misleading..They also argued that the respondent, without first uploading the answer key and inviting objections, proceeded to declare the results of the preliminary examination on January 17, 2019. The answer key was subsequently uploaded on January 24, 2019..In respect of two questions, namely 114 and 120 of the “B” series question paper booklet, the Examination-Cum-Judicial Education and Training Programme Committee itself resolved to award one mark to all the candidates who appeared in the examination. With respect to question No. 191 in the “B” series question paper, the Committee deemed it appropriate to revise the answer key and consider the correct answer to be read as Option (2), instead of Option (1)..The decision was taken in a meeting of the Committee held on January 29..Furthermore, since the petitioners did not press for consideration of question No. 23 and question No.141, the scope of the dispute was narrowed down to two questions, namely question Nos. 183 and 138..Advocate Viraj R Datar, appearing for the respondent, submitted that since the endeavour of the examination is to examine the intelligence, knowledge and clarity on the subject, the four options need not necessarily contain only one possible correct answer. Each question has a “most appropriate answer”, he said..The Court also took note of the instruction printed on each question booklet which stated that the candidates are required to mark the “most appropriate answer” from amongst the four options..Accepting the submission, the Court also observed that the four options need not necessarily contain only one possible correct answer, but can have one “most appropriate answer”. It thus rejected the objection raised against question No. 138..It, however, accepted the petitioners’ stance against question No.183 on the ground that a candidate cannot be made to suffer on account of choosing one option and not the other, when more than one option is equally appropriate..“The standard adopted by the respondent, evidently, is high in as much, as, the options are not in black or white. There is a lot of grey in the said options The more meritorious candidates are expected to crack such tricky questions and to come up with the “most appropriate answers”…However, even the most meritorious of candidates can fail, when confronted with a situation like the present where two or more options in answer to a question appear to be equally appropriate.”.It further observed that the procedure adopted by the respondent of publishing the result of the preliminary examination without first uploading the answer key and inviting objections, cannot be faulted. Since the answer key was uploaded well before the holding of the main examination, no prejudice has been suffered by the petitioners, the Court said..Consequently, it directed the respondent to re-draw the result in light of the aforementioned changes..If as a consequence of the exercise, any of the petitioners meet the eligibility for being permitted to take the main examination, they should be permitted to do so, the Court clarified..The petitioners were represented by Advocate Prashant Manchanda..Read the order: