Goodly Sinha vs The State of Bihar and Others

Navin Sinha, J.—Heard learned Counsel for the petitioner, learned Counsel for the State and learned Counsel for the Commission.

The prayer in this application is to quash the result of the Child Development Project Officer (main) competitive examination on the plea that large number of candidates in the subjects of Psychology, Home Science and Sociology have been declared successful while, the petitioner who had opted for Child Development has not been declared successful.

It is urged that since the marks allotted in Child Development did not go as high as in other subjects, a system of scaling of marks between the subjects of Psychology, Home Science and Sociology and Child Development was required to be adopted to ensure a platform of uniformity in awarding of marks. Stress has been laid to the chart mentioned in the writ petition of the high marks and poor marks secured by the candidates.

Paragraph 17 of the application states that it is the established practice that in order to reduce equality of marks, scaling is done. Reliance has been placed on judgments of the Supreme Court in U.P. Public Services Commission Vs. Subhash Chandra Dixit and Others, Sanjay Singh and Another Vs. U.P. Public Service Commission, Allahabad and Another, .

A counter affidavit has been filed on behalf of Bihar Public Service Commission. It is stated that there is no statutory procedure or provision of scaling of marks or for re-evaluation of the marks, thus, the Commission does not adopt the procedure of scaling of marks.

At the outset, this Court noticed that there is no allegation of any irregularity or illegality in the examination process. The judgment of the Supreme Court in the case of U.P. Public Services Commission v. Subhash Chandra Dixit (supra) has been set aside in the latter judgment of the Supreme Court. In any event, the issues there were substantially different by virtue of the provisions of Rule 51 proviso under which the system of scaling was sought to be resorted. Such is not the case presently. A Division Bench of this Court has already held in Bihar State Co-operative Milk Producer''s Federation Ltd. and Others Vs. The State of Bihar and Others that in absence of any statutory provision for the same there could not be any legal right to demand scaling. This Court cannot differ with the judgment of the Supreme Court that conduct of examination, re-evaluation of marks, modern scaling of marks etc. are of highly complexed technical matters which should be at best left to the Commission and not to the Court.

This Court does not find any reason to arrive at a different conclusion than that held by the Division Bench of this Court. The writ application is dismissed.