Allahabad High Court
Arun Kumar Singh vs State Of U.P. And 2 Others on 14 January, 2020
Author: Saral Srivastava
Bench: Saral Srivastava
HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT ALLAHABAD ?Court No. - 3 Case :- WRIT - A No. - 510 of 2020 Petitioner :- Arun Kumar Singh Respondent :- State Of U.P. And 2 Others Counsel for Petitioner :- Ram Raj Prajapati,Rama Kant Gupta Counsel for Respondent :- C.S.C.,Mritunjay Tiwari Hon'ble Saral Srivastava,J.
Heard learned counsel for the petitioner, learned Standing Counsel for the respondent No. 1 and Sri Mritunjay Tiwari, learned counsel for the respondent Nos. 2 and 3.
Pursuant to an Advertisement dated 1 of 2016 published on 5.6.2016 inviting application for Trained Graduate Teacher Examination, 2016 (male category), the petitioner submitted an application for T.G.T. subject English through online mode which has been registered as Registration No. U.P.00210010096917. Thereafter, the petitioner was issued admit card for participating in written test examination to be held on 9.3.2019. The petitioner was allotted roll No. 0104013569. Petitioner appeared in the written examination held on 9.3.2019 and according to the petitioner, he has given correct answers of 88 questions out of 125 questions, and if his copy was checked he would have been shortlisted for interview. It appears that the OMR sheet of the petitioner has not been checked as the petitioner did not bubble one circle correctly in the box "Roll No." in the OMR sheet.
The petitioner in the aforesaid backdrop has prayed for following main reliefs:-
"I. Issue a writ, order or direction in the nature of mandamus directing the respondent no. 2 and 3 to correct the Roll Number in O.M.R. sheet of petitioner which was wrongly fillup column "Zero" in place of column "One" and after correction examine the copy of the petitioner and declared his result in the interest of justice."
II. Issue a writ, order or direction in the nature of mandamus directing the respondents to take appropriate decision in the representation dated 28.11.2019 filled by the petitioner before him as earliest."
Learned counsel for the petitioner contended that the petitioner has filled in all the details in the OMR sheet but inadvertently he did not correctly bubbled the the box "Roll No.". He further submits that the petitioner has put the signature in the column of candidate's signature, and therefore, it can be easily verified that the OMR sheet is of the petitioner, and thus, the OMR sheet should have been checked by the respondents. He further submits that it was the duty of the invigilator also to ensure as to whether the petitioner has filled in the OMR answer sheet correctly before putting his signature on the OMR sheet and as the invigilator has also failed to discharge duty assigned to him properly, therefore, the inadvertent mistake of the petitioner is not of such a grave nature to justify the action of the respondent in refusing to check the OMR sheet of the petitioner.
Refuting the aforesaid submission, learned counsel for the respondents has placed reliance upon the instructions contained in OMR sheet called as "important instruction for making response on the OMR sheet" which is to be followed by a candidate to fill in the OMR sheet. He has placed reliance upon the Condition Nos. 2 and 9 of the instructions, which is extracted herein below:-
"2. Candidate must fill the Roll No. Subject Code and Question Booklet series (A, B, C or D) in the answer sheet failing which his candidature will automatically be rejected.
9. Answer sheet will be processed by electronic means. Invalidation of Answer Sheet due to incomplete/incorrect filling will be the sole responsibility of the candidate."
Lastly, learned Standing Counsel submitted that as per instructions contained in the OMR sheet, the petitioner has not filled in OMR sheet in accordance with the instructions, hence his OMR sheet cannot be checked. In this regard, he has placed reliance upon the judgment and orders dated 14.2.2019, 7.3.2019 and 18.2.2014 passed by this Court in the Writ A No. 1452 of 2019, Writ A No. 3347 of 2019 and Special Appeal (Defective) No. 117 of 2014 respectively.
Be that as it may, in the facts of the present case, the petitioner has not disputed the fact that he did not bubble one circle in the column of roll number. This Court in the judgements relied upon by learned counsel for the respondents in almost similar circumstances where the petitioner has failed to fill in the OMR sheet as per instructions has refused the prayer for checking of OMR sheet and dismissed the writ petition. Since the controversy is squarely covered by aforesaid judgements of this Court, hence, the present writ petition lacks merit and is accordingly, dismissed.
Order Date :- 14.1.2020 Jaswant