Surendra Mirdha vs State Of Rajasthan And Ors

The appellant has preferred the present intra-court appeal laying challenge to the order dated 14.11.2018, passed by the learned Single Judge of this Court, whereby appellant's writ petition has been dismissed.

Succinctly stated the facts appertain to the present appeal are that the appellant - writ petitioner applied for the post of Constable pursuant to the advertisement dated 25.05.2018, issued by the respondents and undertook the written examination for three subjects.

The petitioner approached this Court by way of filing the writ petition interalia with a grievance that persons less meritorious to him have been called for the interview, whereas the petitioner has nor received such call. It was stated in the writ petition that the respondents have neither declared cut-off marks nor have they disclosed the marks secured by the petitioner.

Respondents filed a reply to the writ petition and stated that the petitioner has secured 48.37 marks; whereas cut-off for OBC category and General category had been 50 and 51 respectively.

Learned counsel for the petitioner contended before learned Single Judge that if the model answer key published by the respondent is compared with copy of his OMR sheet, the petitioner's marks comes to be more than 51 and thus, he ought to have been declared successful for the subsequent stage of selection process.

Learned Single Judge dismissed the petitioner's writ petition, vide its order dated 14.11.2018 interalia observing that the decision of the Examiner is final and the evaluation of the paper cannot be made subject matter of the writ petition.

While comparing the copy of the appellant's OMR sheet with model answer key, Mr. Binja Ram, learned counsel contended that petitioner ought to have been awarded at least 51 marks, hence we directed the respondents to produce original OMR sheet of the appellant, in a bid to ward off any possible/inadvertent error.

Mr. P.R. Singh, learned Additional Advocate General produced the original OMR sheet of the appellant and submitted that the answers marked and assertion made by the appellant appears to be correct if seen by the eyes, but a close look at various answers given by him reveals that he has not marked the answers properly/completely, inasmuch as the requisite circles for the correct answers have not been filled completely. Learned AAG submitted that as per the set norms, until and unless a circle is filled to the extent of 1800 pixels, the computer/scanner does not recognize/read it.

Mr. Singh has invited our attention towards various such circles marked by the petitioner, which have not been filled/coloured properly and hence not read by the computer/scanner, as the area of circles qua the correct answers covered by the appellant was less than 1800 pixels.

Upon perusal of the original OMR sheet of the appellant, in light of the explanation so furnished by the respondents, we are of the considered view that there is no error in awarding marks to the appellant, as he has failed to fill the OMR sheet properly.

It is pertinent to note that not only in the notification for the recruitment, even on the website of the respondents and so also on the OMR sheet/answer sheet provided to the petitioner for filling answers; the candidates were cautioned to fill the same properly. The clause No.8 of the instructions to the candidates, apart from containing clear stipulation in this regard, contains a pictorial depiction of the correct/incorrect way of darkening the circles.

If the appellant has not darkened the circles properly, he himself is to be blamed. The respondents have adopted uniform criteria for all the candidates and as such no fault can be found in the marks awarded in the answer sheet of the appellant.

We do not find any merit in the appellant's appeal and the same is, therefore, dismissed.