Rajasthan High Court - Jodhpur
Shyam Sunder vs State & Anr on 22 November, 2017
Author: Pushpendra Singh Bhati
Bench: Pushpendra Singh Bhati
HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE FOR RAJASTHAN AT
JODHPUR
S.B. Civil Writ Petition No. 1933 / 2016
Shyam Sunder S/o Shri Pema Ram, aged about 39 years, R/o C-
113, Keerti Nagr, Magra Poonjila, Jodhpur, Rajasthan.
----Petitioner
Versus
1. State of Rajasthan through its Secretary, Department of
Personnel, Govt. of Rajasthan, Jaipur.
2. The Rajasthan Public Service Commission, through its
Secretary, Ajmer, Rajasthan.
----Respondents
_____________________________________________________
For Petitioner(s) : Mr. AK Choudhary.
For Respondent(s) : Mr. Rajesh Punia.
_____________________________________________________
HON'BLE DR. JUSTICE PUSHPENDRA SINGH BHATI
Order 22/11/2017
1. The petitioner has preferred this writ petition under Article 226 of the Constitution of India with following prayer:
"A. by an appropriate writ, order or direction your lordship may kindly be pleased to quash the result of petitioner and direct the RPSC for re-evaluation of the answer sheets of the petitioner by expert committee and if the petitioner secures more marks than the cutoff marks of the General category then, interview may be taken of the petitioner and he may be considered for appointment as per his merit in pursuance of advertisement issued RAS and RTS Examination-2012.
B. That by an appropriate writ order or direction, the techniques used by RPSC for evaluation of the answer sheets and for scaling the marks may kindly be declared illegal and therefore, it may be kindly be quashed and set aside.
C. Any other relief which this Hon'ble Court may deem (2 of 10) [CW-1933/2016] fit may kindly be granted in favour of the petitioner.
D. Cost of the writ petition may kindly be awarded to the petitioner.
2. Learned counsel for the petitioner has shown from the record that in Annexure-6, which is the evaluation table of General Knowledge of paper No.1 dated 3.17.2009 that there is a lot of cutting in the marks entered. Learned counsel for the petitioner states that on the Bare perusal of the evaluation table becomes clear that the marks have been changed for prejudicial reasons. Learned counsel for the petitioner has also shown the answer sheet which is on page-83 of the paper-book, in which subjective answers are there and as per learned counsel for the petitioner the marks have been entered and thereafter re-entered. Learned counsel for the petitioner has shown the evaluation sheet which is Annexure-23, as per which the same examiner has entered different marks after cutting the previous entries. Learned counsel for the petitioner has also shown the part of the answer sheets of page-186 regarding the English words to be mentioned in Hindi.
3. Learned counsel for the petitioner has also argued that original answer sheet is there before this Court that if the Court can look into the answer sheet and see if the answer sheet of General Knowledge of English have been evaluated by two different examiners in two different inks. Learned counsel for the petitioner further states that there was a deliberate deduction of the marks with a malafide intention to pull down the petitioner in the merit, as even a single marks would carry a lot of ups and down in the merit of the petitioner reserved in the overall merit. Learned counsel for the petitioner has also pointed out that on the face of record he has sufficient proof for all the alleged questions from reliable authentic sources whereby it could be easily said whether the examiner faultered in the checking.
(3 of 10) [CW-1933/2016]
4. Learned counsel for respondents has refuted the arguments and pointed out the judgment passed by this Hon'ble Court in the matter of Chandu Parihar & Anr. vs. State of Rajasthan & Ors. In D.B. Civil Special Appeal No.1695/2014.
5. Learned counsel for the respondents has harped upon an affidavit which is quoted in the judgment, which reads as follows:
"6. That to minimize the examiner variability and to ensure uniformity for the evaluation of the scripts at the time of evaluation, upon 5-6 examiners (E-1), an Addl.Head Examiner (E-2) was appointed. Over all one Head Examiner for each centre was appointed. To achieve uniformity in evaluation, a meeting of Head Examiner with all Addl.Head Examiner and Examiner was held soon after assembling at the respective valuation centres. In pursuance of the guidelines of the RPSC, they discussed thoroughly the question paper, question wise answer parameters and about the weightage to be given to various aspects of the answers to give marks, looking to the clarity in approach and originality of the fundamental ideas, and in the light of the discussion they arrived on the norms to minimize the variation in assigning marks.
In spite of the norms agreed, many examiners may tend to deviate, by their strictness or liberalness or carelessness during the courses of evaluation. Therefore, to supervise and minimize such tendency Addl.Head Examiner (E-2) made a random inspection of the answer scripts to the extent of about 15% and reevaluated them and by doing so, if marks increased or decreased, they discussed it with the respective examiner's (E-1) about the variation of the marks, to minimize the further variability in remaining answer scripts. Head Examiner inspected the answer scripts randomly, where in difference of more than 5% in marks awarded by E-1 and E-2 was observed. The (4 of 10) [CW-1933/2016] evaluation process was adopted by the RPSC to minimize the examiner variability on the respective centres, looking into the large number of the examiners as well as the scripts. It was a prerequisite of scaling technique, to keep the normal distribution. Examiners were directed to use Red Ink in column E-1 of the script, E-2 was directed to use Green Ink in Column E-2 and Head Examiner was directed to use Black Ink. On this juncture, it is pertinent to mention here that despite of the all efforts as mentioned above, examiner variability was widely available, amongst the examiner on each center as well as amongst the four different Evaluation centres.
7. That after evaluation of the answer scripts, on receiving the answer scripts from all four centres, RPSC make it assured that the marks obtained were got checked mathematically so as to ensure that the marks were written correctly on the Cover Page by the examiners while checking the Answer-books completely (meaning thereby no answer kept unchecked). There after all statistical data's regarding scripts, total marks, examiner data, and subject wise data were entered into the computer.
8. That to minimize the examiner variability as well as the subject variability between the heterogeneous subjects, commission decided to adopt the same scaling technique as being adopted in earlier such exams and upheld in Jai Singh's case. It will be pertinent to mention here that for four compulsory papers, more than 500 examiners were appointed to assess the copies of the candidates at four different centers, in such a situation, where large number of examiner evaluated the answer scripts related to a subject, a large number of examiner variability would be in existence, therefore examiner wise scaling technique was adopted. That in optional paper candidates adopted different 37 heterogeneous (5 of 10) [CW-1933/2016] subjects and therefore to minimize the subject wise variability, subject wise scaling and examiner wise scaling technique was adopted. The scaling technique adopted, is described herewith as under:-
A. That after valuation process valued marks in the scripts were equated as raw marks.
B. That answer scripts having '0' marks were not included in the process of scaling.
C. That for each subject examiner wise statistics analysis was prepared on computer by the programme. Thereafter number of scripts, mean of examiners, standard deviation of each examiner, overall mean and overall standard deviation have been derived by the mathematical calculations.
D. That in a case where copies were evaluated by more than one examiner examiner scaling has been done by way of computer programme adopting a linear formula which is reproduced as under:-
S =M+(Xi-X) * (e/ei) S= Scaled marks M=Overall Mean Xi=Raw Marks X=Examiner/Subject Mean e=Overall Standard Deviation ei=Examiner/Subject Standard Deviation.
E. That examiner wise scaling has not been adopted in those copies which were examined by a single examiner.
F. That after examiner wise scaling, subject wise scaling has been adopted for the optional papers by the statistical analysis which was programmed by the computer. Under this statistical analysis, number of scripts of each subjects, mean of each subject, (6 of 10) [CW-1933/2016] standard deviation of each subject and over all standard deviation were derived by the mathematical calculation thereafter subject wise scaling has been done on the basis of above mentioned linear formula by the computer.
9. That it will be pertinent to mention here that in compulsory paper only examiner wise scaling technique has been adopted and for four optional papers, first of all examiner wise scaling and thereafter, subject wise scaling has been adopted and on the basis of scaled marks result was declared. That scaling technique applied by the commission in R.A.S.and Subordinate Service Examination as received approval of this Hon'ble Court right from the year 1993 starting from the case of Mahesh Kumar Khandelwal and 16 others V/s State of Rajasthan and others 1994(1) RLR 533, Rajasthan Public Service Commission V/s Ramesh Chand Pilwal (RLW 1997 (Raj.) 1348) and in the matter of Manish Sinsinwar & Others Vs. Rajasthan Public Service Commission & Anr. (D.B.Civil Writ Petition No.368/2004 decided on 14.6.2004) and lastly in the case of Jai Singh & Ors., reported in 2011 (2) WLC 46. The law was well settled and duly crystallized by atleast five Division Bench Judgments. Technique of scaling has been adopted by the appellant commission which has been done for all the candidates.
10. That the scaled marks were finally compiled for final result and merit was prepared on the basis of the scaled marks of all the subjects. On the basis of above procedure, result of examination 2012 was declared by RPSC on 27.01.2014 and 3165 candidates were declared successful for interview on the basis of the result declared."
6. Learned counsel for the respondents has also stated that point of scaling has been settled by the D.B. Bench of this Hon'ble Court (7 of 10) [CW-1933/2016] in the same judgment and the relevant portion of the judgment reads as follows:
"30. In the present case, the scaling method is being adopted by the Rajasthan Public Service Commission for the RAS Examination since 1993 and the same has been approved by four Division Benches of this Court, last of which was Jai Singh's case. In view of the long chain of precedents, it was not open for learned Single Judge to have deviated from the law laid down by the Division Benches of this Court, in breach of the principles of 'stare decisis' and in taking a different view on his individual perceptions.
7. Learned counsel for the respondents has shown from the original answer sheet that the two evaluators have checked with different ink and one has made entries by blue pen and another has made entries by red pen. Therefore, two evaluators were entitled to have there own assessment.
8. Learned counsel for the respondents has further stated that only the copy of General Knowledge-1 and General English have been wrongly examined by two examiners. Learned counsel for the respondents further states that answer shown by the petitioner are still doubtful because they are subjective and there are errors in the spelling as well as the form of the answers.
9. Learned counsel for the respondents has also relied upon the judgment of this Hon'ble Court rendered by Full Bench of this Hon'ble Court, in Lalit Mohan Sharma & Ors., reported in 2006(1) CDR 834 (Raj.)(FB) in which learned counsel for the respondents has relied upon para No.20, which reads as follows:
"20. In the context of impressive array of facts, as fully detailed above, we are not inclined to accept the contention raised on behalf of the learned counsel (8 of 10) [CW-1933/2016] appearing for the petitioners that the key answers provided by the respondent-Commission for evaluating the answer-sheets of the petitioners were wrong or that despite there being a report by the Expert Committee the Court must take in hand the exercise of finding out as to whether the key answers are correct or wrong. There is no need to go into the plea raised by the petitioners for examining the disputed questions and the authenticity of the key- answers provided by the respondent Commission in view of the report of the Expert Committee constituted for the propose. Surely, the Court is not an expert in the field of education and the various subjects for which the question paper written statement settled. Expert Committee constituted for the purpose has given its report based upon recognized text books authored by persons of repute in the field. There is no allegation, whatsoever that the members constituting the Committee did not know or had no specialization in the concerned subjects nor is there any allegation of bias against them. In the facts and circumstances of the case, no occasion at all arises for the Court to further probe the matter. The contention of the learned counsel appearing for the petitioners needs thus no further comments. Suffice is it, however, to motion that while urging that the key-answers provided by the respondent Commission are wrong, all that is being urged is that in some of the recognized test book or books of repute, different answers of the concerned questions have been provided. Assuming what has been urged by the learned counsel appearing for the petitioners to be correct, it would neither be permissible nor just and proper to interfere and other re-evaluation of the answer sheets."
10. After hearing the learned counsel for the parties at length and perusing the record of the case as well as the precedent law cited (9 of 10) [CW-1933/2016] above, this Court is of the opinion that that the selection process of the examination under challenge is already over and consequently the appointments have been already been made and thus, any challenge to them shall drastically unsettle the complete merit of the examination, whereas none of the selected or appointed candidates are party to the litigation. Moreover, this Court finds that answers are subjective type and in subjective answers there are chances of evaluations differing between the examiners and also the satisfaction of the examiner is supreme as far as the subjective answers are concerned unless something drastically is wrong shown. Moreover, this Court also finds that the Division Bench of this Hon'ble Court has settled the controversy of scaling by permitting the affidavit regarding the pattern of the examiners who have examined the answers. The Full Bench Judgment of this Honb'ble Court supports the respondents as it is very difficult for this Court to go into the authenticity of the answer as the experts have already made their opinion and already assessed in five layer of lawful process which is mentioned in the D.B. judgment and moreover the petitioner has not been able to show as to exactly what could be the specific motive behind causing prejudice to the petitioner. The reflection by the learned counsel for the petitioner regarding certain answers arep proved wrong from reputed material cannot be established by this Court as this Court could merely have made any interference only in the case of any demonstrative erroneous exercise. That too it is more possible in objective type of questions whether that the definite answers can be determined. It is very difficult to determine the subjective answers as it all depend upon the mind of examiner who would have to assess the copy and who would be giving the marks according to the performance of the candidate in particular.
(10 of 10) [CW-1933/2016]
11. Thus, in light of the precedent law cited by learned counsel for the respondents and the aforesaid reason, no interference is called for in the present writ petition and the same is dismissed.
(DR. PUSHPENDRA SINGH BHATI)J. ck