Allahabad High Court
Ritu Chauhan vs State Of U.P. And 2 Others on 24 November, 2017
Author: Suneet Kumar
Bench: Suneet Kumar
HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT ALLAHABAD A.F.R. Court No. - 19 Case :- WRIT - A No. - 53945 of 2017 Petitioner :- Ritu Chauhan Respondent :- State Of U.P. And 2 Others Counsel for Petitioner :- Awadh Narain Rai Counsel for Respondent :- C.S.C. Hon'ble Suneet Kumar,J.
Heard learned counsel for the parties.
The writ petition is being decided at the admission stage without calling for counter affidavit, on the consent of the parties, as per Rules of the Court.
Learned Standing Counsel has received instructions vide communication dated 23 November 2017 from the third respondent, Pariksha Niyamak Pradhikari, Uttar Pradesh Allenganj, Allahabad.
Petitioner applied online for Uttar Pradesh Teacher Eligibility Test (U.P.T.E.T.) Examination 2017, in female, OBC category.
It is sought to be urged that due to human error, petitioner did not mark the OMR answer sheet specifying 'language attempted' i.e. 'English', 'Urdu' and 'Sanskrit'. In consequence, OMR sheet has not been evaluated.
Learned counsel for the petitioner would urge that the error being human and not deliberate, therefore, petitioner at this stage may be permitted to mark the blank column in the OMR sheet and accordingly the same may be evaluated.
By means of the instant petition, petitioner, inter alia, seeks the following relief:
"(i) Issue a writ order or direction in the nature of mandamus and directing to respondent no. 3 to consider the case of petitioner regard to valuate the OMR answer sheet first session of examination U.P. Teacher Eligibility Test Examination 2017 of petitioner of Roll No. 2910100962 along with other candidate in interest of justice accordance with law."
In rebuttal, learned Standing Counsel would submit that clear instructions were notified vide Government Order dated 24 December 2014 directing the candidates to correctly fill up the form and the OMR sheet. Further, the first page of the question booklet also instructed the candidates to correctly mark the category including "language attempted" on the OMR sheet. Any error committed by the candidate cannot be corrected by the authority, therefore, it is urged that the OMR sheet of the petitioner cannot be evaluated.
Learned counsel for the petitioner has placed reliance on decisions rendered by the Single Judge of this Court in Sanjay Raj Versus State of U.P.1; Kavita Rani Versus State of U.P. and others2 and upon Division Bench decision rendered in Km. Manju Devi Versus State of U.P. and others3, wherein, the controversy was that the petitioner, therein, had wrongly mentioned the aggregate marks obtained by him in Bachelor of Education (B.Ed.), therefore, the Court was of the opinion that the candidate cannot be penalized for wrongly entering their actual marks obtained in the examination which can be corrected subsequently being human error.
Learned Standing Counsel has placed reliance upon the Division Bench decision rendered in Ram Manohar Yadav Versus State of U.P. and others4 and Km. Richa Pandey Versus Examination Regulatory Authority and another5 to urge that the facts of the present case is squarely covered by the aforementioned decisions. The authority relied upon by learned counsel for the petitioner would not apply to the facts of the case at hand.
In the facts of the given case, a candidate was required to mark the 'language attempted' option namely 'English', 'Urdu' and 'Sanskrit'. All the options were left blank by the petitioner. The Court in Km. Richa Pandey (supra) held as follows:
"The OMR sheets are provided to the candidates to speed up evaluation through help of computer. In case we accept the argument of learned counsel for the petitioner that the language in which the petitioner had written essay could be checked up by the examiner before feeding answer book into computer, the entire process of expediting the results will be lost. Where OMR sheets are to be examined with aid of the computer, it is not advisable and practical to direct that each OMR sheet should be checked by the examiners and the columns, which have not been filled up may be filled up by the examiner himself with the aid of the language used by the candidates for writing essay. We are informed by Standing Counsel that about seven lacs candidates had appeared in the test.
With such large number of candidates appearing in TET Examination 2013 it would not have been possible nor it was feasible for examiners to look into the answer sheets individually before feeding them into computer for correcting any mistakes."
The decisions relied upon by learned counsel for the petitioner would not apply to the facts of the case as the Court had granted relief in equity to the petitioners as they had incorrectly filled the marks obtained in B.Ed. or other examinations, therefore, Court was of the opinion that the petitioner did not want to get any ulterior benefit as she has disclosed marks, which cannot be less than actual marks secured by her in examination.
In Ram Manohar Yadav (supra), the Division Bench made the following observations:
"If prospective teacher can not even correctly fill up the simple on line application form for his employment, it is obvious what he is going to teach if appointed. There are certain decisions cited on this issue. But none of them deal with this aspect whether under the discretionary jurisdiction of the Court under Article 226 of the Constitution of India such incompetent persons should be allowed to play with the future of the next generation."
In the facts of the case at hand, petitioner has not filled the column "language attempted" in the OMR sheet, large number of students have taken the examination, it is not practical and advisable that each OMR sheet, which is to be examined by a computer, to be checked by the examiners whether the columns of the OMR sheet has been correctly marked. The omission to fill up the OMR sheet correctly is not a human error but reflects lack of alertness and casual approach of the petitioner in following the instructions. The error is of such a nature which cannot be permitted to be corrected by the authorities.
Having due regard to the facts and circumstances of the case, I find no merit in the writ petition.
The writ petition is, accordingly, dismissed.
No cost.
Order Date :- 24.11.2017 K.K. Maurya