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Judgment
KULDEEP TIWARI, J.(ORAL)
All the above mentioned instant writ petition(s) are amenable to be decided together, as a common legal issue arises for consideration, before this Court. Therefore, with the consent of learned counsels for the parties, the same are being taken up together for adjudication.
For brevity, the facts are being taken up from CWP-24829-2017.
The petitioners-herein, have approached this Court, by invoking writ jurisdiction under Article 226/227 of the Constitution of India, and have made a prayer for issuance of a mandamus, upon the respondent No.3, to revise the result of the petitioners and declare them pass by giving grace marks for Question No.17 (i.e. Q.No.12 of series 4), 52, 59 and 119 (Series-3) in the Punjab State Teacher Eligibility Test-2016 (PSTET-II), conducted by respondent No.3, as according to the petitioners, they cannot be punished for incorrect answers, and their rights cannot be prejudiced. Further prayer is made for issuance of a direction, upon the respondent No.2, to accept the application(s) of the petitioner(s) manually through hard copy, in response to the advertisement dated 10.09.2017 (Annexure P-4), and to allow them to participate in the selection process.
Learned counsel for the petitioner(s) have raised solitary issue with regard to Question No.12, and submits that the justification given by the Expert Committee, is totally erroneous, and has sought interference by this Court, and prayed that at least grace marks with regard to Question No.12, be awarded to the petitioner(s).
No other argument was raised before this Court.
What surfaced from perusal of the reply submitted by contesting respondent No.3, is that some of the candidates had earlier approached this Court, by filing CWP No.4721 of 2017, titled ‘Savneet Kaur vs. State of Punjab’ raising the issue with regard to Questions No.52, 59 and 119. The said writ petition was disposed of by a Coordinate Bench of this Court, by drawing an order dated 27.09.2017, with a direction to the answering respondent to ensure that the objections filed be referred to an independent expert and after the report of the expert and their recommendations regarding remedial action to be taken, the final result be declared. In the earlier round of litigation, no challenge was raised with regard to Question No.12.
In compliance to the directions (supra), issued by this Court, the respondent/department has constituted an Expert Committee, and on the recommendations of the Expert Committee, the result of the Punjab State Teacher Eligibility Test-2016, was revised on 24.10.2017, and the revised result of all the candidates along with the present petitioners, was uploaded on the website.
So far as, the issue with regard to Question No.12 is concerned, the respondent/department has again constituted an Expert Committee. The justification offered by the said Committee, is extracted hereinafter :-
“Question No. 12
According to Lawrance Kohlberg, Children cannot maintain the constancy of their gender. They attain the understanding only gradually, moving through the following stages.
(a)gender struggle, gender stability, gender consistency
(b)gender Labelling, gender struggle, gender stability
(c)gender Labelling, gender stability, gender consistency
(d)gender Labelling, gender struggle, gender stability
Justification: Question no. 12 has option (b) and (d) with similar meaning English as well as Punjabi. But the correct answer is option (c). Though the options are similar yet it does not affect the choice to be answered as correctly as these options are incorrect.”
In view of the above, the respondent/department has come to the conclusion that no further revision in the result is required.
This Court has considered the sole submission made by learned counsel for the petitioner(s), and is of the considered opinion that there is no merit. All the questions were re-examined by the Expert Committee, and accordingly the result was revised.
So far as, the question No.12 is concerned, the Expert Committee has already given justification and this Court cannot act as Super Expert over the Expert Committee, to re-examine the issue, at hand. Furthermore, with the efflux of time, the selection process which was initiated vide advertisement dated 10.09.2017 (Annexure P-4), has already been completed, and on this ground also, this Court refrains to interfere with the justification given by the Expert Committee, as demonstrated hereinabove.
Consequently, finding no merit in all the above captioned writ petition(s), the same are hereby, accordingly, dismissed.
Pending miscellaneous application(s), if any, also stands disposed of accordingly.
Photocopy of this order be placed on all the connected case files, as numbered above.