Vijay Singh vs Badriprasad Pandey

The writ jurisdiction of this Court is invoked for revaluation of 76 marks out of 100 awarded to the petitioner in subject of Business Studies in class-XII examination of 2016 by contending that despite number of questions having been rightly answered, no marks have been awarded to the petitioner.

1.1 The grievance of the petitioner is in regard to questions No. 7, 8, 9, 18, 19, 20 and 21 of the said subject which according to the petitioner despite having been rightly answered have either attracted no marks or less marks than due.

This Court, at the very outset, may remind its of the limited scope of judicial review in academic matters specially of evaluation of marks awarded by experts. The court by way of judicial review in such matter can only extend assistance where no evaluation has taken place of certain answers but cannot interfere into the assessment made by the evaluator by awarding certain marks to the answer which may not be to the liking of the student concerned. This limitation is all the more pronounced when answers are descriptive in nature. This Court is bolstered in its view by the decision of the Apex Court in the case of Maharashtra State Board of Secondary and Higher Secondary Education Vs. Paritosh Bhupesh Kumarsheth reported in AIR 1984 SC 1543 relevant extract of which is reproduced below:-

"The High Court has relied upon the fact that the University of Bombay and some other Universities have recently made provisions permitting candidates to demand revaluation. In our opinion, this has little relevant for the purpose of deciding about the legal validity of

the impugned regulations framed by the Board. We do not know under what circumstances, the University of Bombay has decided to recognize a right in the examinees to demand a revaluation. As far as the Board is concerned, it has set out in the counter-affidavit the enormity of the task with which it is already faced, namely, of completing twice during each year the process of evaluation and release of results of some 3 lakhs of candidates appearing for the SSC and HSC Examinations to be held in an interval of only a few months from one another. If the candidates are all to be given inspection of their answer books or the revaluation of the answer papers is to be done in the presence of the candidates, the process is bound to be extremely time consuming and if such a request is made by even about ten per cent of the candidates, who will be 30,000 in number, it would involve several thousands of man hours and is bound to throw the entire system out of gear. Further, it is in the public interest that the results of public examinations when published should have some finality attached to them. If inspection, verification in the presence of the candidates and revaluation are to be allowed as of right, it may lead to gross and indefinite uncertainty, particularly in regard to the relative ranking etc. of the candidates, besides leading to utter confusion on account of the enormity of the labour and time involved in the process."

Dealing with the scope of interference in such policy matters by Courts, the Supreme Court held :--

"...... The Court can not sit in judgment over the wisdom of the policy evolved by the Legislature and the subordinate regulation-making body. It may be a wise policy which will fully effectuate the purpose of the enactment or it may be lacking in effectiveness and hence calling for revision and improvement. But any drawbacks in the policy incorporated in a rule or regulation will not render it ultra vires and the Court can not strike it down on the ground that in its opinion, it is not a wise or prudent policy, but is even a foolish one, and that it will not really serve to effectuate the purposes of the Act. The Legislature and its delegate are the sole

repositories of the power to decide what policy should be pursued in relation to matters covered by the Act and there is no scope for interference by the Court unless the particular provision impugned before it can be said to suffer from any legal infirmity, in the sense of its being wholly beyond the scope of the regulationmaking power of its being inconsistent with any of the provisions of the parent enactment or in violation of any of the limitations imposed by the Constitution .... the Court should be extremely reluctant to substitute its own views as to what is wise, prudent and proper in relation to academic matters in preference to those formulated by professional men possessing technical expertise and rich experience of actual day-to-day working of educational institutions and the departments controlling them."

Dealing with the contention that students who do very well in the examination, will be highly prejudiced if there is no provision for revaluation, and therefore Courts should interfere in such matters, the Supreme Court, held thus:--

"It will be wholly wrong for the Court to make a pedantic and purely idealistic approach to the problems of this nature, isolated from the actual realities and grass root problems involved in the working of the system and unmindful of the consequences which would emanate if a purely idealistic view as opposed to a pragmatic one where to be propounded. It is equally important that the Court should also, as far as possible, avoid any decision or interpretation of a statutory provision, rule or bye-law which would bring about the result of rendering the system unworkable in practice."

Considering the question whether a right to revaluation should be recognized, while examining the validity of a Rule barring revaluation, the Supreme Court held :--

"We are unable to agree with the further reason stated by the High Court that since ''every student has a right to receive fair play in examination and get appropriate marks matching his performance'' it will be a denial of the right to such fair play if there is to be a

prohibition on the right to demand revaluation and unless a right to revaluation is recognized and permitted there is an infringement of rules of fair play. What constitutes fair play depends upon the facts and circumstances relating to each particular given situation. If it is found that every possible precaution has been taken and all necessary safeguards provided to ensure that the answer books inclusive of supplements are kept in safe custody so as to eliminate the danger of their being tampered with and that the evaluation is done by the examiners applying uniform standards with checks and cross checks at different stages and that measures for detection of malpractice etc. have also been effectively adopted, in such cases it will not be correct on the part of the Courts to strike down the provision prohibiting revaluation on the ground that it violates the rules of fair play."

2.1 The above said decision of Apex Court has been followed by this Court in the case of Pranshu Indurkhya Vs. State of M.P. reported in 2005(2) MPLJ 315 and in WP No. 5320/2016 (Rahul Soni Vs. M.P. Board of Secondary Education & Anr.) decided on 16.03.2017

During the pendency of this case, learned counsel for the Board has brought on record vide IA No. 1524.2017 that on revaluation it was found that the petitioner is entitled to 5 more marks ( 2 marks for Question No. 16 and 3 marks for question No. 20 for which earlier no marks were given). It is submitted by counsel for the Board that to the extent indicated above, the Board has rectified the mistake committed by the evaluator and therefore is ready and willing to enhance the marks obtained by the petitioner in the subject of Business Studies from 76 to 81. At this juncture, learned counsel for the petitioner inviting attention of court to answer No. 7, 8, 9,18, 19 , 20 & 21 further submits that these questions despite being answered by the petitioner have not received appropriate marks.

3.1. A bare perusal of said answers to questions No. 7, 8, 9,18, 19 ,20 & 21 reflect that they are descriptive in nature where few

sentences are required to be written to answer a particular question.

3.2. As indicated above, the scope of judicial review in matters of evaluation of marks in descriptive type questions is limited and is open only where no evaluation has taken place. In the instant case, a bare perusal of the answer sheet (Annexure P/3) reflects that the answers to question number 7, 8, 9,18, 19 ,20 & 21 are descriptive in nature and therefore this Court declines interference in the marks awarded for the said questions.

In view of the above, this petition is disposed of with direction that the petitioner may be issued fresh mark sheet by enhancing 5 marks ( 2 marks for Question No. 16 and 3 marks for question No. 20) for the subject of Business Studies in the Higher Secondary School Certificate Examination, 2016 as expeditiously as possible preferably within one month from the date of receipt of copy of this order.

No cost.