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Allahabad High Court · body

2022 DIGILAW 559 (ALL)

Mohd. Adi Ahmad v. State of U. P.

2022-04-13

AJIT KUMAR

body2022
JUDGMENT : [Ajit Kumar, J.] 1. Heard Sri Mujib Ahmad Siddiqui, learned counsel for the petitioner, Sri Abhishek Srivastava, learned counsel for respondent Nos. 2 and 3 as well as learned Standing Counsel. 2. The petitioner before this Court has been an applicant to the post of Junior Engineer (Trainee) pursuant to the advertisement issued by the Electricity Services Commission and he has been declared successful in the written examination but has come to be ousted after verification of credentials and records when the final merit list was published. He raised in this petition twin arguments: one, the selecting agency did not publish the revised answer key after it had invited objections as per the brochure and found certain objections to be valid so as to demonstrate transparency in selection as conceived of vide clause 10 of the advertisement; and the second argument advanced is that the normalization criteria adopted by the testing agency was not a proper criteria and had the normalization not been made applicable, the petitioner would have been selected. 3. Sri Abhishek Srivastava, in compliance of the last order of this Court, has obtained instructions in the matter and placed the same before this Court which are taken on record. 4. As per the instructions obtained by Sri Srivastava, after the written examination was held as per clause 10 of the advertisement, objections were invited to the answer key published by the testing agency and the objections that were received were duly dealt with by the subject experts nominated by the testing agency for the said purpose and finally the report was submitted and on the basis of said report, the testing agency was permitted to declare the result by the Secretary of the Electricity Services Commission under its letter dated 11.11.2021. He, therefore, submits that the testing agency had fully complied with the procedure prescribed for under clause 10 of the advertisement. Secondly, he submits that soon after the notice of this petition was received by him, he had forwarded the copy thereof to Electricity Services Commission who referred the matter of objections regarding questions which are turned out to be 12 in number at the end of the petitioner, to the testing agency. Secondly, he submits that soon after the notice of this petition was received by him, he had forwarded the copy thereof to Electricity Services Commission who referred the matter of objections regarding questions which are turned out to be 12 in number at the end of the petitioner, to the testing agency. The testing agency got examined the same and found one objection raised by the petitioner regarding question ID No. 9277592169 to be valid and accordingly awarded full marks for that to the petitioner. 5. It is argued by learned counsel for the respondents that even after getting full marks for one objection being found to be valid, the petitioner could not qualify. Learned counsel for the respondents has further argued that as far as the publication of revised answer key by the testing agency is concerned, there is no such rule. He submits that clause 10 of Transparency Rule of the advertisement clearly takes care the objections are invited to the Master Answer Key published by the testing agency and then the disposal of objections by the testing agency through its subject experts, which shall be final and therefore, he argues that there is no question to publish any revised answer key after the objections are met by the subject experts. With regard to other argument of normalization rule being made applicable to the selection process by the testing agency, he submits that the brochure did provide for normalization method to be adopted and the method to be adopted has been explained away in Annexure 1 to the advertisement. He submits that once the normalization criteria was made an integral part of modalities to be adopted by the selecting agency in preparation of final selection and the petitioner submitted to the same while applying against the advertisement and followed the terms and conditions in the advertisement, now he cannot be permitted to take a turn around to suggest that the normalization rule was per se illegal method adopted by the testing agency or was a fraud method that has resulted in rejection of his candidature on merits. 6. Having heard learned counsel for the respective parties and their arguments raised across the bar, I find that both the arguments raised by learned counsel for the petitioner in support of this petition do not hold merit. 6. Having heard learned counsel for the respective parties and their arguments raised across the bar, I find that both the arguments raised by learned counsel for the petitioner in support of this petition do not hold merit. Firstly, once the petitioner had applied, he has not questioned the advertisement itself and after having submitted to the selection process and appearing in the written examination conducted by the testing agency and even having filed objections as per clause 10, he cannot be permitted to take the plea that in spite of there being no such provision contained under Clause 10 of the advertisement, as a rule of transparency, the testing agency ought to have published the revised answer key. Even otherwise I do not find this argument to be holding any merit as the objections that have been put forth by the petitioner have been met by the subject experts of testing agency and one of the objections raised by the petitioner having been found to be valid, he has been awarded marks for the same, I, therefore, do not find, in the absence of any argument that the other objections if should have been held valid even against grant the opinion of subject expert nominated by the committee. The law on this point is also well-settled, the Master Answer Key which is published by the testing agency or formulated by the testing agency for the examination being conducted and held by it, it has its own team of subject experts. Once the subject experts have taken the view that a particular answer is the correct answer to a question, there is no mechanism itself for the Court to sit in appeal over and above the opinion of the subject expert. 7. Reliance placed by the learned counsel for the respondent upon the judgment of Supreme Court in Civil Appeal No. 5838 of 2018, UPPSC through its Chairman and another v. Rahul Singh and another is worth consideration here at this stage. vide paras 14 and 15 of the judgment, the Supreme Court has held that the High Courts cannot over step its jurisdiction by giving directions which would amount to setting aside the decision of the expert opinion of testing agency. Paragraph Nos. 14 and 15 of the Judgment are reproduced hereunder: 14. vide paras 14 and 15 of the judgment, the Supreme Court has held that the High Courts cannot over step its jurisdiction by giving directions which would amount to setting aside the decision of the expert opinion of testing agency. Paragraph Nos. 14 and 15 of the Judgment are reproduced hereunder: 14. In the present case we find that all the 3 questions needed a long process of reasoning and the High Court itself has noticed that the stand of the Commission is also supported by certain text books. When there are conflicting views, then the Court must bow down to the opinion of the experts. Judges are not and cannot be experts in all fields and, therefore, they must exercise great restraint and should not overstep their jurisdiction to upset the opinion of the experts. 15. In view of the above discussion we are clearly of the view that the High Court over stepped its jurisdiction by giving the directions which amounted to setting aside the decision of experts in the field. As far as the objection of the appellant - Rahul Singh is concerned, after going through the question on which he raised an objection, we ourselves are of the prima facie view that the answer given by the Commission is correct. 8. This above judgment has also been followed by me in the case of Smt. Shimla Singh v. State of U.P. and another, 2019(3) ADJ 777 and vide paragraph 24 of the judgment I have held thus: ''24. Applying the law as discussed by the Apex Court and held so in the judgment of Rahul Singh (supra), to the facts of the present case, I find that the expert opinion having been obtained in respect of the questions and the way they proved with the aid of relevant text book materials, there is hardly any scope to sit in appeal over such expert opinion. This Court in exercise of power of judicial review will certainly not transgress an area in which it has no expertise and where it has to act and take a decision only with the aid of experts of such field/area. This Court in exercise of power of judicial review will certainly not transgress an area in which it has no expertise and where it has to act and take a decision only with the aid of experts of such field/area. The questions may carry an answer, which may on the face of it appear to be correct and may be in some of the text books that is indicated to be so but ultimately it is the paper setting Committee and the Moderation Committee which has the advantage of having subject experts of various fields, if have arrived on a conclusion that particular answer is correct answer, this Court will refrain itself from holding it otherwise. ..........'' 9. In view of the above objection to correctness of answer by subject expert is rejected, and so the argument regarding objection part to the questions raised by the petitioner cannot be accepted and hence rejected. 10. In so far as the normalization rule is concerned, I find that this rule has been made an integral part of modalities to be adopted by the testing agency for holding selection in respect of the advertisement published against which the petitioner has been the applicant. 11. The rule of normalization is adopted by the testing agency to bring at par the meritorious students who have gained maximum marks in different set of papers which have been formulated by the testing agency to hold examination in different shifts. 12. In the considered view of the Court, it is well within the domain of testing agency to formulate rules and regulations for the purposes of holding free and fair selection. It is not the case of the petitioner that he was not aware of any such terms and conditions under the advertisement regarding modalities to be adopted by the testing agency. It is after the petitioner has found himself to have not succeeded on merits that he has come to challenge the rule of normalization. I, therefore, do not find this to be a stage to question the rule of normalization. Even otherwise, nothing has been argued to demonstrate that the rule of normalization has been adopted at different stages of the selection to prejudice the rights and interest of the candidates who participated in the selection process. 13. The writ petition lacks merit and is accordingly dismissed, consigned to records with no order as to cost.