Madras High Court
M.Rajasekhar vs The Director Of School Education ... on 19 September, 2025
Author: Abdul Quddhose
Bench: Abdul Quddhose
W.P.(MD)No.19498 of 2023
BEFORE THE MADURAI BENCH OF MADRAS HIGH COURT
DATED : 19.09.2025
CORAM
THE HONOURABLE MR JUSTICE ABDUL QUDDHOSE
W.P.(MD)No.19498 of 2023
M.Rajasekhar ... Petitioner
Vs.
1.The Director of School Education (Elementary Education),
O/o. the Directorate of School Education,
DPI Campus,
College Road, Chennai-600 006.
2.The Chairman,
Teachers Recruitment Board,
4th Floor, E.V.K. Sampath Maligai,
College Road,
Chennai-600 006. ... Respondents
PRAYER: Writ Petition filed under Article 226 of the Constitution of India for
issuance of Writ of Mandamus, directing the respondents to select and appoint
the petitioner in the post of Block Educational Officer by awarding marks to the
wrong questions in the question paper for the 5th batch within the time stipulated
by this Court.
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W.P.(MD)No.19498 of 2023
For Petitioner : Mr.S.Louis
For R-1 : Mr.S.Shaji Bino,
Special Government Pleader
For R-2 : Mr.T.Amjad Khan,
Standing Counsel
ORDER
This writ petition has been filed for a mandamus seeking for a direction to the respondents to select and appoint the petitioner to the post of Block Educational Officer by awarding marks for the wrongly framed question in the question paper for the 5th batch, within a time frame to be fixed by this Court.
2. The grievance of the petitioner in this writ petition is that the key answers published by the second respondent to Question Nos.4, 48, 50, 114 and 138 are erroneous. The petitioner has also claimed grace marks for the wrongly framed question No.21. According to the petitioner, if marks were awarded to the petitioner for the correct answers given by him for question Nos.4, 48, 50, 114 and 138 and if grace marks were awarded for question No.21, he would have secured a total marks of 93.68, which would very well fall within the zone of consideration for being selected to the subject post under the SC category.
The petitioner has given a representation on 23.02.2021 for the aforesaid 2/9 https://www.mhc.tn.gov.in/judis ( Uploaded on: 25/09/2025 11:31:14 am ) W.P.(MD)No.19498 of 2023 purpose. Since the representation was not considered, the petitioner has filed this writ petition.
3. A common counter-affidavit has been filed by the second respondent.
In the counter-affidavit, the second respondent has stated as follows:
“8. It is submitted that wherever there is any error in the questions or options given by the TRB, the Board would award marks for all the candidates irrespective of the options chosen by the candidates. A Star mark would be specified for all such questions. The Star Mark * indicates that one mark will be awarded to all candidates invariably to that question. In respect of 5th session Question paper, five questions carries star mark viz, 4, 48, 50, 114. 138. For all the five questions marks have been awarded for all the candidates in the 5th session.
9. It is submitted that the petitioner in the affidavit stated that he has secured 89.64932 in the computer Based Examination and the normalized marks awarded to him was 89.68987. The petitioner avers that he would get at least 4 marks in addition even after normalisation. It is further submitted that the Normalization of marks will be done only by electronic system through standardized programme and not manually.3/9
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10. It is submitted that since the Board conducted Computer Based Test in six sessions on 14.02.2020 and 16.02.2020, the Board followed Normalization procedure.
The methodology followed in normalization process was mentioned in the notification itself and same is as follows:
"Normalization of the marks:
The online Computer Based Examination may be conducted in multiple sessions. Whenever online Computer Based Examination is conducted in multiple sessions based on the same syllabus, same pattern for candidates having same eligibility criteria, the raw marks obtained by the candidates in different sessions will be converted to normalized marks. A candidate will be permit to appear only in one session.
In case if there is only one session, actual marks obtained by the candidates will be used for calculating the merit list.
iv. Calculation of normalized marks for multi-session papers.
In case of multi session papers, a suitable normalization is applied to take into account any variation in the difficulty levels of the question papers across different sessions.
The following Normalization formula for calculating 4/9 https://www.mhc.tn.gov.in/judis ( Uploaded on: 25/09/2025 11:31:14 am ) W.P.(MD)No.19498 of 2023 the normalized marks for the multi-session paper is adopted as followed in various Competitive Examinations in India.
Normalization mark of jth candidate in ith session is given by:
11. It is submitted the Board has scrutinised the five questions mentioned hereunder and that the petitioner has already been awarded marks with respect to the question numbers: 4, 48, 50, 114 & 138. The Board cannot award additional marks for these five questions to the candidate and his marks remain 89.68987 only.
12. It is submitted that in regard to question no.21;
based on the Expert Committee Reports, the Key answer of the Board is correct and the Evidences in relation to question no.
5/9https://www.mhc.tn.gov.in/judis ( Uploaded on: 25/09/2025 11:31:14 am ) W.P.(MD)No.19498 of 2023 21 and the Expert Committee report are submitted herewith.
13. It is submitted that the petitioner belonging to SC category secured 89.68987 marks. The minimum eligible cut- off mark for SC category as per the Provisional Selection List published by the Board on 04.02.2022 is 92.82637 marks. Since the petitioner has secured only 89.68987 marks he was not considered for selection.
4. The respondents have also contended that the petitioner has filed this writ petition only after the selection process was over and, therefore, even on the ground of delay, the writ petition is not maintainable.
5. The learned counsel appearing for the petitioner reiterated the grievance of the petitioner and prayed for issuance of mandamus through this Writ Petition by this Court.
6. On the other hand, the learned Standing Counsel appearing for the second respondent drew the attention of this Court the following authorities:
a. 2018 0 AIR (SC) 52 in the case of Ran Vijay Singh and Others Vs. State of Uttar Pradesh and Others;6/9
https://www.mhc.tn.gov.in/judis ( Uploaded on: 25/09/2025 11:31:14 am ) W.P.(MD)No.19498 of 2023 b. 2018 0 AIR (SC) 2861 in the case of U.P.P.S.C., through its Chairman and another Vs. Rahul Singh and another;
7. As seen from the aforesaid decisions, it is clear that the onus to disprove the correctness of the evaluation of the mark sheets lies on the candidate, who questions the selection process. In the case on hand, a categorical submission has been made by the respondents through their counter that the petitioner has secured 89.68 marks and he has not reached the zone of consideration which is 92.86 marks in the SC category. There is no conclusive evidence placed before this Court by the petitioner in support of his contention in this writ petition. As held by the decision rendered by the Hon'ble Supreme Court in Ran Vijay Singh case, it has been made clear that this Court should not at all re-evaluate or scrutinize answer sheets of candidate as it has no expertise in the matter and academic matters, which are best left to academics.
8. In the very same decision, the Hon'ble Supreme Court has further held that the Courts should presume correctness of key answers and proceed on that assumption. It is made clear that the sympathy or compassion does not play any role in matter of directing or not directing revaluation of answer sheets. In the case on hand, as observed earlier, there is no conclusive proof has been placed 7/9 https://www.mhc.tn.gov.in/judis ( Uploaded on: 25/09/2025 11:31:14 am ) W.P.(MD)No.19498 of 2023 before this Court by the petitioner to prove that his answer sheet was not properly evaluated by the respondents. Further, it is to be noted that the entire selection process for the said post got over long time back. This writ petition was filed in the year 2023 after the selection process was over. Therefore, at this stage, the question of entertaining this writ petition does not arise. In fact, another writ petition filed by the very same petitioner in respect of the very same cause of action filed by a different counsel has been dismissed by this Court today.
9. Therefore, this writ petition also deserves to be dismissed. No costs.
19.09.2025 NCC:yes/no Index:yes/no Internet:yes/no TSG To The Director of School Education (Elementary Education), O/o. the Directorate of School Education, DPI Campus, College Road, Chennai-600 006.
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TSG W.P.(MD)No.19498 of 2023 19.09.2025 9/9 https://www.mhc.tn.gov.in/judis ( Uploaded on: 25/09/2025 11:31:14 am )