Prajna Lalit Mishra vs O.P.S.C.

Biswajit Mohanty, J.—This is the unfortunate story of a young lady, who despite answering the objective type questions correctly has been

deprived of getting full marks for her answers, as a result of which she has filed the present writ petition with a prayer for issuance writ/writs in the

nature of Mandamus directing the OPSC (opp. party No.1) to evaluate answers to the Question No.12(b) of ""Law of Property"" paper properly

and to further direct opp. parties to give consequential benefits of such evaluation.

The case of the petitioner is that she was a candidate for Odisha Judicial Service Examination, 2014 for filling up 69 posts of Civil Judges out of

which 35 posts were earmarked for unreserved category candidates. She was assigned with Roll No.3503 by opp. party No.1. The said

examination consisted of three stages, namely, Preliminary Written Examination, Main Written Examination and Interview. She cleared the

Preliminary Written Examination and appeared in the Main Written Examination. As per the advertisement of the opp. party No.1 under

Annexure-1, in order to get a call for the last stage of recruitment process i.e. Interview test, a candidate has to secure not less than 45% marks in

aggregate and minimum of 33% marks in each paper of the Main Written Examination. According to the petitioner, she did well in the Main

Written Examination but when the result of Main Written Examination was declared vide Annexure-3 on 29.09.2014, her Roll number was missing

from the list of 52 candidates, who were provisionally selected to appear in the interview to be held from 28.10.2014 to 31.10.2014. When the

marks were published in the Website of OPSC, from that the petitioner could come to know that while she has secured more than 33% of marks

in each paper, however she has not secured 45% marks in the aggregate. In the aggregate she has secured total 337 marks thus falling short by .5

marks to reach 45% and thus her name was not shown in the provisional list vide Annexure-3. It may be noted here that as per the advertisement

under Annexure-1, a candidate has to appear in two compulsory papers of 150 marks each and three optional papers also of 150 marks each in

the Main Written Examination. Thus, the total marks in the Main Written Examination comes to around 750 marks, 45% of the total marks comes

to 337.5 marks. In such background, in order to know about the details, the petitioner applied for Xerox copies of all answer scripts. On perusal

of the answer scripts supplied to her under Annexure-6, she could come to know that in the ""Law of Property"" paper, she has not been awarded

full marks for answers given by her in response to objective type Question No.12(b). Question No.12(b) contained five objective type questions

carrying full 15 marks. According to the petitioner though she had answered three questions under Question No.12(b) correctly but instead of

getting 9 marks out of 15, she was awarded only 6 marks. Therefore according to her if the examiners were satisfied that she had answered some

of the questions of Question No.12(b) of ""Law of Property"" paper correctly, the examiners should have awarded 3 full marks for each of her

answers instead of awarding 2 marks. Accordingly, her case is that she should have been awarded full 3 marks each for giving correct answers to

Question Nos.12(b)(ii), 12(b)(iii) and 12(b)(iv) and thus she should have been awarded 9 marks instead of 6 marks for above noted 3 answers.

Once she gets 3 more marks, her total marks would stand at 340 and thus she would cross 45% of marks in aggregate and would qualify for the

interview. Thus, in gist, the case of the petitioner is that though she has given correct answers to Question Nos.12(b)(ii), 12(b)(iii) and 12(b)(iv) in

the ""Law of Property"" paper instead of awarding full 9 marks, she has been given only 6 marks in an arbitrary manner which has resulted her

disqualification for appearing at the interview. Challenging such arbitrary, unreasonable and irrational evaluation, she has filed the present writ with

the prayers as indicated above.

Pursuant to notice opp. party No.1 has filed a counter defending the evaluation stating that the answer scripts were evaluated by the eminent

Examiners, re-checked by the Chief Examiners and scrutinised by the Scrutinizers. Opp. party No.1 has further stated that Examiners who

examined the answer scripts were in the rank of Professors/Readers/Associate Professors/Senior Lectures, in law. It further states that valuation of

answer scripts were done on the basis of ""Scheme of Valuation"" prepared by concerned Chief Examiner and Examiners of relevant papers and

valuation was made uniformly in respect of all the candidates. Therefore, the allegation made by the petitioner relating to erratic and arbitrary

evaluation by opp. party No.1 is not correct. In such background, according to opp. party No.1 it has done no wrong or illegality in not calling the

petitioner for appearing at the interview for recruitment to Odisha Judicial Service, 2014.

Heard Mr. Srinivas Mohanty, learned counsel for the petitioner, Mr. Pradipta Kumar Mohanty, learned Senior Advocate appearing for opp.

party No.1 and Mr. B.P. Pradhan, the learned Addl. Government Advocate, Mr. Mohanty, learned counsel for the petitioner put stress on the fact

that the Question No.12(b) of ""Law of Property"" paper dealt with objective type questions. Therefore, in case the answers given by the petitioner

to Question Nos. 12(b)(ii), 12(b)(iii) and 12(b)(iv) were found to be correct, for each such answer, the petitioner should have been awarded full 3

marks instead of 2 marks. He further submitted that the averments made by the petitioner in the writ petition to the effect that the above noted

questions were of objective type have not been disputed by opp. party No.1 in its counter. Further relying on the ""Scheme of Valuation"" relating to

Law of Property"" paper as supplied to the petitioner by opp. party No.1 vide Letter No.498/PSC, dated 27.1.2016, he contended that a perusal

of ""Scheme of Valuation"" itself revealed that the opp. party No.1 expected the answer to Question No.12(b) on ""Law of Property"" paper to be in

''Yes'' or ''No''. This also reflected that Question No.12(b) of ""Law of Property"" paper dealt with objective type of questions. Relying on the

Scheme of Valuation"" on ""Law of Property"" paper as supplied to the petitioner, Mr. Mohanty vehemently argued that so far as Question Nos.

12(b)(ii), 12(b)(iii) and 12(b)(iv) were concerned, a perusal of answer scripts as supplied by OPSC under Annexure-6 would show that with

regard to above noted 3 questions, the petitioner has given correct answers in tune with ""Scheme of Valuation"" on ""Law of Property"" paper.

Therefore, he prayed that the petitioner should be given full 3 marks each for correctly answering the above noted 3 questions instead of 2 marks

each. Thus, he submitted that petitioner was entitled to 9 marks for answering Question Nos.12(b)(ii), 12(b)(iii) and 12(b)(iv) correctly instead of

6 marks and once the petitioner would get 3 more marks, her total marks would come up from 337 to 340 entitling her to appear at the interview.

Per contra, Mr. Mohanty, learned Senior Counsel for the opp.party No.1 defended the evaluation of answer to Question Nos. 12(b)(ii), 12(b)

(iii) and 12(b)(iv) saying that they have been properly evaluated by the Examiners, Chief Examiner etc.

In this case, a perusal of Question No.12(b) reflects that it deals with objective type questions. For ready reference, Question No.12(b) of

Law of Property"" paper is extracted hereunder:

(b) Whether the following illustrations are sufficient acknowledgement of liabilities: 15

(i) ""I am ashamed that the account has stood so long.

(ii) ""I admit the loan but I have since repaid the amount.

(iii) ""The promissory note which I gave is unstamped. I will not pay it.

(iv) ""I wish to look your accounts; in my own account I do not see any amount due to you. Please, therefore, send the account.

(v) ""I cannot afford to pay my new debts much less the old debts I owe.

As per ""Scheme of Valuation"" of ""Law of Property"" paper as supplied by the opp. party No.1 to the petitioner, the following are the answers to

various questions of Question No.12(b) of ""Law of Property"" paper as indicated above:

(i)—No

(ii)—Yes

(iii)—Yes

(iv)—No

(v)—No

The above also reflects that Question No.12(b) deals with objective type questions.

Now we quote hereunder the answers given by the petitioner to the above noted questions of Question No.12(b):

(i) Yes it amount to acknowledgement as the person has admitted his liability.

(ii) Yes, this a sufficient acknowledgement of liability.

(iii) Yes, it amounts to sufficient acknowledgement.

(iv) No, there is no sufficient acknowledgement

(v) Yes, it amounts to acknowledgement.

In such background, we have to assess the rival contentions of the petitioner and opp. party No.1. A perusal of the model answers as per

Scheme of Valuation"" of ""Law of Property"" paper and the answers given by the petitioner as indicated above in the answer scripts shows that she

has correctly answered Question Nos.12(b)(ii), 12(b)(iii) and 12(b)(iv) and since she has answered the above 3 questions correctly, there is no

earthly reason for depriving her from getting full 3 marks for each such correct answer. It was not disputed by the learned Senior Counsel for the

OPSC that full marks for each of the correct answer is 3. Thus if an examinee gives correct answer to the 5 questions contained in Question

No.12(b), he or she is entitled to get full 15 marks assigned to such question as indicated in the question paper itself. Therefore, in our considered

opinion there has not been proper marking of the answer scripts relating to Question No.12(b) of ""Law of Property"" paper in tune of ""Scheme of

Valuation"" prepared by the Chief Examiner and Examiners notwithstanding the averment of opp. party No.1 in para-5 of its counter that valuation

of answer scripts was done on the basis of ""Scheme of Valuation"" prepared by the concerned Chief Examiner and Examiners of relevant papers.

In such background we direct the opp. party No.1 to immediately evaluate the answers to Question Nos.12(b)(ii), 12(b)(iii) and 12(b)(iv) in the

light of observations made above and allow the petitioner to appear at a Special Interview. In case the petitioner comes out successful in the

Interview, she should be given appropriate place in the final merit list of OJS Examination of 2014 and should be given appointment accordingly

with full protection of her seniority amongst successful candidate of the said examination of 2014 as per the redrawn merit list along with all

financial and service benefits. We understand from the bar that as on today a large number of vacancies are there in the post of Civil Judge. In fact

out of 69 vacancies advertised under Annexure-1, as per the affidavit dated 11.2.2016 filed by opposite party no.1 and affidavit dated 10.2.2016

filed by opposite party no.2, OPSC had recommended 52 candidates and they have already been appointed. Out of these 52 candidates, 12

candidates from U.R. category were recommended under Rule 17(3) of Orissa Superior Judicial Service and Orissa Judicial Service Rules, 2007

on account of non-availability of reserved category candidates. Thus even in the recruitment to Odisha Judicial Service, 2014, 17 posts could not

be filled in. We also understand from the bar that in the recruitment examination to Odisha Judicial Service, 2015, out of 69 number of advertised

posts, only 21 have qualified for appointment. Thus till date large number vacancies exist. Accordingly, writ petition is allowed. No costs.