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Jharkhand High Court · body

2014 DIGILAW 619 (JHR)

Union of India v. Ajay Kumar-II

2014-05-12

R.BANUMATHI, SHREE CHANDRASHEKHAR

body2014
ORDER Aggrieved by order dated 23.01.2013 in and by which the Central Administrative Tribunal allowed O.A. No. 108 of 2011 (R) with a direction to the Department to reconsider reevaluation of the Answer Sheets of the applicant and to complete the exercise within four months from the date of communication of order, the present writ petition has been filed. Brief Facts 2. The applicant was appointed as Sorting Assistant and he had been working in the Office of the Superintendent, R.M.S., Ranchi since 01.07.1997. He appeared in the departmental examination for the I.P.Os. Examination, 2007 held between 10.08.2007 to 12.08.2007, for which the result was declared on 26.02.2008. Though, the respondent herein obtained total of 300 marks in five papers, he could secure only 39 marks in Paper-II and 18 Marks in Paper-III and therefore, he was declared unsuccessful. The respondent-applicant made a representation on 09.11.2011 for reevaluation of Paper-II and Paper-III of I.P.Os. Examination, 2007. An application under the R.T.I. Act, 2005 was also made by the respondent on 27.10.2009 and the reply on 5 points query made by the respondent as well as Answer Sheets of Paper-II and Paper-III of I.P.Os. Examination, 2007 were provided to the respondent vide letter dated 25.10.2010. Pursuant to representation of the respondent, the marks awarded to the respondent in Paper-II and Paper-III were also rechecked and marks in Paper-II were raised by ½ marks and thus his total marks in Paper-II was raised from 38.1/2 to 39 in rechecking. In Paper-III also his marks was raised from 18 to 28. Still aggrieved, the respondent approached the Central Administrative Tribunal, Patna Bench Patna (Circuit Court at Ranchi) in O.A. No. 108 of 2011 (R) which has been allowed vide order dated 23.01.2013. 3. We have heard Mr. Md. Mokhtar Khan, the learned counsel appearing for the petitioner who has submitted that in view of Rule 15 of Appendix No. 37, reevaluation of Answer Book and reevaluation of Answer Script are not permissible under any circumstance. 3. We have heard Mr. Md. Mokhtar Khan, the learned counsel appearing for the petitioner who has submitted that in view of Rule 15 of Appendix No. 37, reevaluation of Answer Book and reevaluation of Answer Script are not permissible under any circumstance. It is further submitted that the learned Tribunal fell in error in holding that Rule 15 of Appendix 37 (Part-I) has been overruled by the Department itself vide Instruction dated 02.08.2010 in as much as, Instruction dated 02.08.2010 also clearly spells out that in cases in which all the answers were evaluated, there is no need to consider the request for re-evaluation and such request merits rejection at the initial stage itself. 4. Per contra, the learned counsel appearing for the respondent has submitted that admittedly, marks awarded to the applicant in Paper-II and Paper-III have been raised without disclosing the necessary details. In similar circumstance in O.A. No. 649 of 2008, O.A. No. 146 of 2009 as also in O.A. No. 255 of 2011, the prayer for reevaluation of the Answer Sheets by an independent examiner has been allowed by the Tribunal and therefore, the writ petition is liable to be dismissed. It is further submitted that in view of the Instruction dated 02.08.2010, in so far as, the grievance raised by the applicant/respondent for reevaluation of Answer Sheets of Paper II and Paper III is concerned, it is covered under Clause i, ii and iii of the said Instruction. 5. We have considered the submission made by the learned counsel appearing for the parties and perused the documents on record. 6. The Original Application was filed by the respondent-applicant on the following grounds; (i) in Paper-II he was disqualified by one (01) marks though, the question no. 4 (a), 7 (a) and 9 are appropriate for more marks, (ii) though, answer of question no. 2(E) in Paper-III is “similar in meaning” to the Key Answer-Sheet he was awarded zero (0) marks and, (iii) the Question No. 5, 7 and 9 of the applicant has been reevaluated as per direction of the C.A.T., Patna Bench in O.A. No. 649 of 2008 and O.A. No. 146 of 2009 however, he was awarded 5 marks in Question No. 7 out of 10 and 5 in Question No. 9 out of 15 which is unjustified and other question nos. 2 and 4 have not been rechecked in which his answer vide 2 (E) is correct but he has been given zero marks instead of 5 and answer of Question No. 4 is also correct in which zero marks has been given instead of 10 marks. The applicant claimed that he should have been given 58 instead of 28 marks. 7. It is thus seen that the applicant sought a direction for reevaluation of his Answer-Sheets. It is well-settled that in the absence of the provision for reevaluation, no direction can be issued by the Court to this effect. In “Pramod Kumar Srivastava Vs. Chairman, Bihar Public Service Commission & Ors” reported in (2004) 6 SCC 714 , the Hon'ble Supreme Court has held as under: 7. “……… Under the relevant rules of the Commission, there is no provision wherein a candidate may be entitled to ask for reevaluation of his answer-book. There is a provision for scrutiny only wherein the answer-books are seen for the purpose of checking whether all the answers given by a candidate have been examined and whether there has been any mistake in the totalling of marks of each question and noting them correctly on the first cover page of the answer-book. There is no dispute that after scrutiny no mistake was found in the marks awarded to the appellant in the General Science paper. In the absence of any provision for reevaluation of answer-books in the relevant rules, no candidate in an examination has got any right whatsoever to claim or ask for reevaluation of his marks………” 8. The learned counsel for the petitioner has relied on Rule 15 of Appendix no. 37 (Part-I) to contend that order passed by the learned Tribunal was contrary to the statutory provision. Per contra, the learned counsel appearing for the respondent-applicant has submitted that vide Instruction dated 02.08.2010, the provision contained in Rule 15 of Appendix no. 37 has been modified and reevaluation of Answer Sheet has now been made permissible. 9. Rule 15 of the Appendix-37 reads as under: “Revaluation of answer books Revaluation of answer scripts is not permissible in any case or under any circumstances.” 10. Paragraph No. 3 of the Instruction dated 02.08.2010 reads as under: 3. 37 has been modified and reevaluation of Answer Sheet has now been made permissible. 9. Rule 15 of the Appendix-37 reads as under: “Revaluation of answer books Revaluation of answer scripts is not permissible in any case or under any circumstances.” 10. Paragraph No. 3 of the Instruction dated 02.08.2010 reads as under: 3. It may be seen that representations requesting for revaluation of answer papers are being received in this office specifically pointing out the following grievances: (i) Particular answer(s) were not evaluated (ii) Excess attempted answer(s) were not evaluated (iii) For the same answer(s), the examiner awarded marks to one candidate and to another candidate no marks were assigned or the answer struck off as wrong (iv) All the answers were evaluated but justified marks were not awarded by the examiner.” 11. In the Instruction dated 02.08.2010 in paragraph no. 4 it has been provided that in so far as, the representation falling under Clause-iv of paragraph no. 3 is concerned, such representation is liable to be rejected at the initial stage itself. It is further stated that in view of Rule 15 of Appendix no. 37 reevaluation of Answer-Sheet after declaration of results is not permissible. It is thus apparent that a provision for scrutinizing the Answer-Sheet has been made for the purpose of checking whether all answers given by a candidate have been examined or not and whether marks awarded for each question is reflected in the total marks awarded to a candidate or not. The respondent-applicant has challenged the marks awarded to him and sought reevaluation on the ground that the examiner of Paper-II and examiner and re-examiner of Paper-III have not applied their judicial mind in checking the Answer-Sheets as per question. As noticed above, the Rule relating to the departmental examination as contained in Appendix no. 37 and the Instruction dated 02.08.2010 issued by the Ministry of Communications and Technology, Department of Posts, Government of India do not permit reevaluation of Answer-Sheet. The learned Tribunal erred in issuing a direction to the respondent to reconsider reevaluation of the Answer-Sheets of the respondent-applicant. 12. As noticed above, there is no provision for reevaluation of Answer-Sheet in the Rules rather the Rule provides that under no circumstance, reevaluation of Answer-Sheet is permissible and thus, the Tribunal fell in error in issuing a direction contrary to the statutory rules. 12. As noticed above, there is no provision for reevaluation of Answer-Sheet in the Rules rather the Rule provides that under no circumstance, reevaluation of Answer-Sheet is permissible and thus, the Tribunal fell in error in issuing a direction contrary to the statutory rules. The order passed by the Tribunal suffers from serious infirmity. Accordingly, the impugned order dated 23.01.2013 is set aside and the writ petition is allowed.