B. Rajappa vs The Addl. Controller of Examination, University of Madras and Another

Nainar Sundaram, J.—The petitioner in W. P. No. 3572 of 1980 is the appellant in this writ appeal The respondents in the writ petition are

the respondents herein. The parties shall be referred to as per their nomenclature in the writ petition. The petitioner filed the writ petition with the

following prayer-

For the reasons stated in the accompanying affidavit, the petitioner prays that this Hon''ble Court may be pleased to issue a writ of certiorarified

mandamus or any other appropriate writ or other direction ""calling for the records from the University and quash the memorandum issued by the

Additional Controller of Examinations, Madras University, dt. 6-3-1980 in his official memorandum No. E6/B. Arch/1980 and direct the

Additional Controller of Examinations to arrange for a revaluation, by objective and dispassionate examiners, of my answer papers in B. Arch

(final) examination, 1979 in Advanced Architectural Design, Thesis, Town Planning and Advanced Structural Design on a fair comparison with the

answer papers of the other candidates, with register numbers 280, 281, 282, 284, 285, 291, 292, 296, 301 and 302, who had been declared

successful in the same B. Arch. (Final) Examination, 1979 and pass such further or other orders as this Hon''ble Court may deem fit and render

justice.

The impugned memorandum reads as follows: --

Office of the Registrar, University of Madras, University Buildings, Chelauk, Triplicane, P O Madras-600005

Dated 6th March 1980

Official Memorandum No. E6/B/ Arch/1980

Ref: His request for revaluation of answer papers in Advanced Structural Design and Town Planning, including Civil Architecture, Regional

Planning and Housing and Thesis part at the B. Arch (Final) Degree Examination of April 1979

The answer paper in Town Planning including Civic Architecture, Regional Planning and Housing of candidates with Register No. 279 at B. Arch.

Degree (Final) examination of April 1979 has been revalued and he is awarded 45 marks out of 100.

The paper on Advanced Structural Design and the Thesis submitted by him have also been revalued and there is no change in the marks already

awarded to him in any of them.

He is therefore directed to fill in and submit the enclosed application form together with the prescribed fees on or before 10-3-198(sic).

The original statement of marks issued to him should be returned to this office for issuing a fresh one.

A sum of Rs. 50 (Rs.fifty only) will be refunded to him by Money Order less commission in due course,

sd.......

Addl. Controller of Examinations

To

Thiru Balasubramaniam Rajappa, son of Hon''ble Mr. Justice V. Balasubramaniam 10 Bheemasena Mudali Garden St. Alwarpet, Madras 18

Copy to the Director, School of Architecture and Planning, for information.

Padmanabhan J. who heard the writ petition along with another writ petition, countenanced the prayer of the petitioner with reference to

revaluation of answer papers in Advanced Structural Design, Thesis and Advanced Architectural Design. However, the learned single Judge, on a

construction of the Rules governing revaluation, did not countenance the prayer for revaluation of Answer papers in Town Planning. The other

prayer for comparison, as set out in the writ petition, was negatived by the learned single Judge, in respect of all the papers. Aggrieved by the

above order of the learned single Judge, the petitioner has preferred this writ appeal.

Mr. V. R. Biksheswaran, learned counsel for the petitioner, would submit that revaluation done in respect o( answer papers in Town Planning

and in respect of answer papers on other subjects, for which the learned single Judge gave directions, should have adhered to and should adhere

to acceptable and reasonable standards and the request of the petitioner for comparison is a reasonable one and that alone will ensure that

revaluation is being done in.a fair and proper manner. As against this, Mr. D. Murugesan, learned counsel appearing for the respondents, would

submit that at the relevant point of time, there were rules governing revaluation and as per the terms of the said rules, there is no scope for bringing

in the aspect of comparison, as asked for by the petitioner, and no candidate, sitting for examinations, conducted by the respondents, could, as of

fundamental right, insist for revaluation and revaluation being a matter settled by the rules and it can be done only in accordance, with the rules and

the rules do not contemplate and set out a process of comparison, in the course of revaluation and it is not possible to bring in any other general

concept and theory of revaluation, as any individual candidate, according to his wisdom and scope of his grievance may envisage.

There is no dispute over the proposition that a candidate, sitting for examinations, conducted by any University has not got a fundamental right to

insist for revaluation of his papers. That is a matter that has got to be settled by the rules governing the examinations in question. Once the rules go

formulated, it is not possible to travel beyond the rules and bring in a mode of revaluation as each individual candidate, according to the scope of

his grievances, would envisage support and insist. The learned single Judge has also taken note of the fact that the rules for revaluation did not

contemplate comparison with the answer papers of any other successful candidate. On the question of revaluation, we cannot omit to take note of

the ratio and observations of the Supreme Court in Maharashtra State Board of Secondary and Higher Secondary Education and Another Vs.

Paritosh Bhupeshkumar Sheth and Others, . The Supreme Court upheld the validity of a Regulation providing that no revaluation of ""the answer

papers shall be done and disagreeing with the view of the High Court, the other way about, observed as follows (At p. 1558) :-

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.

The Supreme Court countenanced the proposition that some finality should be annexed to the results of public examinations, in the following

terms :

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........... If the principle laid down by the High Court is to be regarded as correct, its applicability cannot be restricted to

examinations conducted by school educational Boards alone but would extend even to all competitive examinations conducted by the Union and

State Public Service Commissions. The resultant legal position emerging from the High Court judgment is that every candidate who has appeared

at any such examination and who is dissatisfied with his results would, as an inherent part of his right to ''fair play'' be entitled to demand a

disclosure and personal inspection of his answer scripts and would have a further right to ask for revaluation of his answer papers. The inevitable

consequence would be that there will be no certainty at all regarding the results of the competitive examination for an indefinite period of time until

all such requests have been complied with and the results of the verification and revaluation have been brought into account

Fortunately for the petitioner, the rules provided for revaluation. He cannot be allowed to travel beyond them and suggest a mode, which

according to him is & reasonable and a fair one. Once this approach is countenanced, it is not possible to draw any line any where, and

suggestions after suggestions on the concept of proper, fair and reasonable method of revaluation are likely to be placed before Courts and Courts

would be obliged to substitute and support their views on the methodology of revaluation. That is a field, better left to the professional acumen of

personnel, possessing technical expertise and wide experience on those aspects, and courts would do well not to superimpose their views and to

restrain themselves from doing it Deprecating the practice of Courts substituting their own views in the place of those of professional men, the

Supreme Court observed as follows--

As has been repeatedly pointed out by this Court, 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 experience and rich

experience of actual day-to-day working of educational institutions and the departments controlling them. It will be wholly wrong for the Court to

make a pedantic and purely idealistic approach to the problems of this nature, isolate 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 were

to be propounded.

The ratio and observations of the highest Court in the land have been followed by this Court and we do not propose to refer to the

pronouncements of this Court in this behalf. Even with reference to the answer papers in Town Planning, the grievance is that revaluation ought to

have been done by adopting the mode of comparison with the papers of other successful candidates. As already noted, such is not the procedure,

contemplated and laid down by the Rules governing revaluation. We are convinced that it is (not?) permissible for this Court to bring in a new

theory and have that incorporated in the Rules by our pronouncement In our view, the learned single Judge was right in declining to countenance

the proposition of revaluation by comparison. We are not persuaded to interfere in writ appeal, and accordingly, this writ appeal fails and the same

is dismissed. We make no order as to costs.