The Allahabad High Court has directed to declare the results afresh by giving grace marks to all 230 candidates in place of two wrong questions of TET 2021 and by giving one mark to 727 candidates on behalf of two questions of UP TET 2019.
A Single Bench of Justice Saurabh Shyam Shamshery passed this order while hearing a petition filed by Pragati Agarwal and 57 Others.
The Court has proceeded to consider the issue involve in all these writ petitions on following factual and legal premise:-
(I) The examination in question, namely, Uttar Pradesh Teachers Eligibility Test-2021 (UPTET-2021) is only a qualifying eligibility for the purpose of appointment of Assistant Teachers and such test is held every year.
(II) Petitioners have participated in UPTET-2021 and are at the threshold of getting passing marks.
(III) Some of the petitioners have filed objections to the tentative answer key and some have not filed any objection, still they remained aggrieved since in the final answer key some of the answers which, according to them, were earlier correct, found altered.
(IV) So far as legal position is concerned the Court as well as Supreme Court in various judgments, have reiterated that the Constitutional Courts must exercise great restraint in such matters and should be reluctant to entertain a plea challenging the correctness of the key answers.
Anurag Agrahari and Pranesh Kumar Mishra, Advocates for petitioners, on the basis of certain material, submitted that though all the options of some of the questions were incorrect but one option was declared correct and in other questions incorrect options were declared as correct answers.
They have also referred that at least two questions, i.e, Questions No 8 and 141 were earlier part of UPTET-2017 and a controversy has reached upto this Court and they referred the judgment passed by Division Bench in State of U.P and others vs Mohd Rizwan and others, decided on 20.11.2019 that therein it was ordered to grant grace marks.
Per contra, Ashish Kumar Nagvanshi, Shashi Prakash Singh, Additional Chief Standing Counsel, Manvendra Dixit, Standing Counsel and Shruti Malviya, Brief Holder, for State, have referred various judgments that the Court cannot sit as an expert to scrutinize the answers given by expert panel, after considering various relevant material.
They also submitted that no benefit can be granted to petitioners, who have not filed any objections to the answer key. However, they have not denied specifically that some of the questions were repeated along with same options though in different order in examination in question as referred to the judgment passed in Mohd Rizwan (supra).
In the above factual and legal background, the Court is of the view that in case some questions were repeated in UPTET-2021 with same options though in different order, therefore, ambiguity, which was considered by Division Bench of this Court in Mohd Rizwan (supra) earlier, was repeated, therefore, benefit given to candidates therein, could be granted to petitioners herein also.
In this regard the Court carefully perused the judgment in Mohd Rizwan (supra). Questions no 16 and 131 of UPTET-2017 are repeated in UPTET2021 being Questions No 8 and 141.
“The aforesaid reasoning, conclusion and relief is also equally applicable in these cases. Except that there is no concession on behalf of State, still the Court is of the considered view that since earlier ambiguity has been repeated in UPTET-2021 also, therefore, relief, as granted in Mohd Rizwan (supra) may be granted to petitioners herein also. Therefore, grace marks for Questions No 8 and 141 are granted to petitioners. No distinction can be made out, whether an objection to answer key was filed or not, as petitioners are now before the Court.
So far as other questions are concerned, i.e, Questions No 25 and 35, during argument the objection with regard to Question No 35 was not pressed. So far as Question No 25 is concerned, the material annexed alongwith writ petitions would not be sufficient to take a contrary view to the revised answer key as well as in view of the observation made by the Supreme Court in Ran Vijay Singh (supra) that in only extraordinary circumstances correctness of answer key be doubted, which is not the case in hand, therefore, no relief can be granted qua to Question No 25″, the Court observed.
“In aforesaid circumstances, the writ petitions are allowed in part and only with regard to Questions No 8 and 141 grace marks be granted to petitioners and accordingly it is ordered that fresh result be declared qua to all petitioners, after taking note of grace marks”, the Court ordered.