HP Board of School Education vs Rajnesh

Mansoor Ahmad Mir, C.J.(Oral)—This Letters Patent Appeal is directed against the judgment dated 22.9.2015, made by the learned Single Judge of this Court in CWP No. 2569 of 2015 titled Rajnesh v. H.P. Board of School Education and others, whereby the writ petition filed by the petitioner came to be allowed, hereinafter referred to as "the impugned judgment", for short, on the grounds taken in the memo of appeal.

The judgment, on the face of it, is not in tune with the judgment made by this Court in CWP No. 9169 of 2013 titled Vivek Kaushal and others v. H.P. Public Service Commission and other connected matters, decided on 10.7.2014, made by the Division Bench of this Court, and other cases. The judgment impugned is also bad in view of the judgment delivered by the apex Court in Himachal Pradesh Public Service Commission v. Mukesh Thakur and another reported in (2010) 6 SCC 759.

At this stage, Mr. Lovneesh Kanwar, Advocate, for the appellant stated at the Bar that his client has admitted in para 5 of the reply on preliminary submission that two grace marks are to be awarded to the petitioner/respondent No. 1 herein. It is apt to reproduce para 5 of the reply on preliminary submission herein.

"5. That in respect of question No. 25 and 29 of booklet series A, the respondent Board has got again reviewed these questions from subject experts and as per the opinion of the subject experts, it has been decided to award a mark to question No. 25 and 29 respectively."

In view of the discussion made herein above, the impugned judgment merits to be set aside and writ petition merits to be granted, in terms of para 5 of the reply on preliminary submission quoted supra.

Having said so, the impugned judgment is set aside and the writ petition is disposed of in terms of para 5 of the reply on preliminary submission quoted supra, along with pending applications, if any.