Calcutta High Court (Appellete Side)
Somnath Chatterjee vs The State Of West Bengal & Ors on 10 August, 2020
Author: Subrata Talukdar
Bench: Subrata Talukdar
IN THE HIGH COURT AT CALCUTTA
CONSTITUTIONAL WRIT JURISDICTION
APPELLATE SIDE
PRESENT:
HON'BLE JUSTICE SUBRATA TALUKDAR
WP No. 26501 (W) of 2017
With
WP No. 5918 (W) of 2017
(Assigned)
Somnath Chatterjee
-Vs.-
The State of West Bengal & Ors.
For the Petitioners : Mr. Sourav Prasanna Mukherjee
For the State-Respondent : Mr. Ram Mohan Pal
For Public Service Commission : Mr. Pradip Kumar Roy Ms. Shraboni Sarkar Heard on : 30/08/2019 Judgment on : 10/08/2020 Subrata Talukdar, J:
The moot question in these two analogous writ petitions is common and simply put, may be framed as follows:-
"Whether the writ petitioner is entitled to one extra mark in the Objective Test held in 2015 for the Group D General Category (GC) Post in the District Judgeship of Howrah."
The petitioner through Mr. Mukherjee, Learned Counsel, submits in all earnestness that he had attempted Question No. 62 (Q.62) by giving the correct answer as 62 (A).
Q.62 reads as follows:-
"62. Find the odd man out (A) Goole (B) Altavista (C) Java (D) Lycas"
It is submitted that the petitioner's answer to Q.62 was marked as incorrect since the correct answer was not 62 (A) but 62 (C). It is further submitted that the word Goole in 62 (A) refers to a town in the United Kingdom (UK). The answer to Q.62 which is to find the odd man out in 62 (A), (B), (C) and (D), is 62 (A) since 62 (B), (C) and (D) belong to the Science Category.
Mr. Mukherjee points out that both 62 (B) and (C), i.e. Altavista and Java respectively, refer to a computer based language and 62 (D), i.e. Lycas, refers to an insect. Therefore, Learned Counsel submits, the correct answer to Q.62 will be 62 (A), which is neither related to Computer Science nor to the Bio-Science Category, being the name of a town.
The petitioner claims to have exercised his right to seek remedy first by way of an application under the Right to Information Act, 2005 (for short the 2005 Act) and thereafter by way of a previous writ petition. The search for a remedy culminated in a reply from the Respondents that the petitioner obtained 88 in the Written Objective Test whereas the candidate placed immediately above the petitioner secured 89 and received the job offer. It is therefore submitted that the grant of one mark against Q.62 would have assisted the petitioner to be also eligible for the job.
Since other issues apart from Q.62 were not pressed by the petitioner during arguments, this Court confines its discussion to Q.62 alone as presented by the parties.
Appearing for the Respondents/the District Judgeship of Howrah, Mr. Pal, Learned Counsel, has filed instructions in the form of a Report. However, it does not transpire from the Records of the Recruitment Committee of the District Judgeship of Howrah that any attempt was made to comprehend the rationale behind the correct answer to Q.62. The Resolutions of the Recruitment Committee as presented at the hearing by way of the Report dated 9th August, 2018 speaks as follows:-
"a) From Copy of the key model answer it appears that in respect to question number 62 of Booklet Series-A of Group-D Written Examination 2015, (C) is the correct answer.
b) From the resolutions of the Recruitment Committee dated-04.06.2016, 06.06.2016 and 27.06.2016, it could not be ascertained why (C) is selected as correct answer. The Committee did not consider the answer of question 62 and the resolutions speak nothing in this regard."
Accordingly, finding the Report of the answering Respondents to be of little help in this adjudication, this Court by its order dated 10th of August, 2018 permitted the petitioner to implead the State Public Service Commission (SPSC) as a party respondent. The Secretary, SPSC was permitted to appoint an Expert to shed light on the correct answer to Q.62 in the light of the following questions:-
"(a) What is the correct answer to Q.62?
(b) Why the answer to (a) above has been selected as the correct answer?"
The SPSC appearing through Mr. Roy, Learned Counsel, has filed the Report of the expert, which is reproduced in full below for the benefit of this discussion:-
"To The Secretary/Assistant Secretary, West Bengal Public Service Commission, Kolkata Sir, On the basis of request from P.S.C. to go through the question no. 62 and its probable answer my observations are:
1. This question set by the paper setter may be mainly on knowledge of computer science terminology.
2. Goole a search engine as Goole.com (enclo.1)
3. AltaVista a Web search engine (enclo.1)
4. Java a general purpose computer programming language (enclo.1)
5. Lycas not a term of this science but Lycos related to Lycos, Inc a web search engine and Web portal (enclo.1) So Java the odd one Enclosure 1 Dr.Nimai Bandyopadhyay"
Java Java is a general-purpose computer-programming language that is concurrent, class-based, object-oriented, and specifically designed to have as few implementation dependencies as possible AltaVista Alta Vista was a Web search engine established in 1995. It became one of the most-used early search engines, but lost ground to Google and was purchased by Yahool in 2003, which retained the brand, but based all AltaVista searches on its own search engine.
Date launched: 15 December 1995 Key people: Paul Flaherty, Louis Monier, Michael Burrows, Jeffrey Black Headquarters: Palo Alto, California, U.S. Founded: 1995 Owner: Yahool Lycos Lycos, Inc., is a web search engine and web portal established in 1995, spun out of Carnegie Mellon University. Lycos also encompasses a network of email. Webhosting social networking, and entertainment websites. Founded: 1995 Headquarters: Waltham, Massachusetts, United States Subsidiaries: Gamesville, Lycos Asia Ltd., Lycos Japan Corp. Founders: Bob Davis, Michael Loren Mauldin Parent organization: Ybrant Digital Types of site: Web search engine, Web portal, World Wide Web Goole Goole.com was established to act as a portal site to search both the Internet and provide a presence on the Internet for the Town and Port of Goole. Essentially we aim to present a selection of sites that represent the people and businesses of the Goole area as well as useful information." Mr. Galib, Learned State Counsel, submits that the writ petition is not maintainable since the petitioner is an unsuccessful candidate.
Having heard the parties and considering the materials placed, this Court cannot be oblivious to the reasoning provided by the SPSC Expert. From the Expert's document it would transpire that 62 (A)- Goole, 62 (B)- Altavista and 62 (D)- Lycas are all search engines of the Internet. Goole features on the Internet to search and provide a presence on the Internet for the Town and Port of Goole. Therefore, Goole is described on the net as essentially a search and selection of sites that represent the people and business of the Goole area as well as other related information.
Accordingly, this Court is persuaded to take a view consistent with the view of the Experts that 62 (C), i.e. Java, is the odd man out representing a computer language distinct from a computer based search engine. It is trite in law that the Court shall not interfere with the opinion of experts unless, a case of palpable perversity is made out.
However, before parting with this discussion, this Court directs the Registry to place this judgement before the Recruitment Committees, District Judgeship of Howrah, to put in place a suitable mechanism, if not already in place, so that the Committee shall be able to address its improved collective mind in the event a situation of like nature occurs in future.
Both W.P. No. 5918 (W) of 2017 and W.P. No. 26501 (W) of 2017 stand accordingly disposed of.
Urgent Xerox certified photocopies of this judgment, if applied for, be given to the parties upon compliance of the requisite formalities.
(Subrata Talukdar, J.)