The Jabalpur Bench of the Madhya Pradesh High Court on Friday, allowed petitioners to appear in the main examination of the State Service and Forest Service Examination of 2019, to be held on March 21.
A Single-Judge Bench of Justice Atul Sreedharan passed this order while considering two different Petitions filed by Vikram Singh and Ajay Kumar Mishra.
Nitya Nand Mishra, Counsel for the Petitioners, stated that Vikram Singh is from the EWS category and he requires only 2 marks more to qualify for the Main Examination. He contends that his answer to Question No.57 is correct and for that he should be awarded 2 marks, for which he was wrongly denied 2 marks.
“Q.57. From the options given below which National Highway does not pass through Madhya Pradesh?
(a) NH – 3
(b) NH -12
(c) NH – 7
(d) NH – 8 “
The petitioner – Vikram Singh had ticked on option (a) NH-3, as the Highway that does not pass through Madhya Pradesh.
Likewise, petitioner Ajay Kumar Mishra who is in the Unreserved category, the cut off marks required was 146 and he was short by 2 marks at 144. His grievance is also identical as that of petitioner Vikram Singh . Ajay Kumar Mishra, has ticked option (b) NH-12 as the correct answer.
The Court observed that both the petitioners , in these cases, have missed the bus for the Main Examination only by 2 marks. The option that was given as correct by the petitioner – Vikram Singh was option (a), which is NH-3. The description of National Highways given by the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways as on 31.03.2019, reflects that NH-3 passes only through the State of Punjab, Himachal Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir. Therefore, a strong prima facie inference, that the option (a) to question No.57 selected by Vikram Singh, is correct. As regards petitioner – Ajay Kumar Mishra, he has selected the option (b) which is NH-12. The Gazette Notification shows that the Highway runs entirely through the State of West Bengal and so this option is also prima facie correct.
Both the options ticked by the petitioners appear to be correct and when seen in the backdrop of paragraph-5 clause (2) sub-clause (3) of PSC manual which provides that all options to a question for which more than one option is correct, the answer shall be deemed to be correct, the Court noted.
Therefore the High Court allowed both the Petitioners to appear in the Main Examination of the State Service and Forest Service Examination of the year 2019, as interim relief.
Moreover the Court clarified while Citing the Judgement of the Supreme Court passed in Ran Vijay Singh and others Vs. State of Uttar Pradesh and others reported in (2018) 2 SCC 357, that “Whereas the statute rules and regulations does not permit revaluation or scrutiny of answer sheets then the Court may permit revaluation or scrutiny only if it is demonstrated very clearly without any “inferential process of reasoning or by a process of rationalisation” and only in rare or exceptional cases that a material error has been committed.”
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