Madhya Pradesh High Court
Pooja Sharma vs The State Of Madhya Pradesh on 15 September, 2025
NEUTRAL CITATION NO. 2025:MPHC-GWL:22098
1 WP-6734-2014
IN THE HIGH COURT OF MADHYA PRADESH
AT GWALIOR
BEFORE
HON'BLE SHRI JUSTICE AMIT SETH
ON THE 15th OF SEPTEMBER, 2025
WRIT PETITION No. 6734 of 2014
POOJA SHARMA
Versus
THE STATE OF MADHYA PRADESH AND OTHERS
Appearance:
Shri Swapnil Sharma Advocate appeared for petitioner.
Shri Ravindra Dixit - Government Advocate for the respondent No.
1/State.
Shri Amin Khan, learned counsel for the respondent No. 2/Board.
ORDER
1 . The petitioner has filed the instant writ petition under Article 226 of Constitution of India stating therein that she had appeared in the Higher Secondary School Examination conducted by the respondent/Board in the year 2014 and has prayed for the following reliefs :-
"(i) That, respondents directed to may kindly be revaluate the answer sheet of the petitioner by any other teacher of examiner.
(ii) That respondents may kindly be directed to award the marks afresh after counting and adding the marks left by the respondent while checking the copy of the petitioner.
(iii) That, a compensation of Rs. two lakh may kindly be directed to be paid to the petitioner, for mental harassment, and problems occurred due to awarding the less marks.
(iv) That, any other relief which this Hon'ble court may deems fit, with the cost of the petition."
2 . It is the case of the petitioner that while valuating questions No. 13, 14, 16, 17,18, 19, 21 & 23, no proper marks have been awarded even though as per Signature Not Verified Signed by: SANJAY NAMDEORAO DURGEKAR Signing time: 9/19/2025 7:57:12 PM NEUTRAL CITATION NO. 2025:MPHC-GWL:22098 2 WP-6734-2014 the stand of the petitioner answer attempted to the said questions by her are correct in terms of Board sample question paper set-A (Mathematics) filed on record as Annexure P/5.
3. Learned counsel for the petitioner after taking this Court to the various questions attempted by the petitioner has tried to point out that in the aforesaid questions, appropriate marks ought to have been awarded to the petitioner which have not been awarded to her by the respondent/Board. Learned counsel by referring to question No. 17 submits that in the answer script one mark has been awarded to the petitioner, whereas, in the page of consolidation/totalling, no mark against question No. 17 has been awarded to her. Similarly, for question No. 14, he submits that in the answer attempted by the petitioner, no mark has been awarded to her, but in the page of consolidation/totalling one mark has been awarded to her. He further submits that valuation of the answer script of the subject Mathematics attempted by the petitioner suffers from grave illegality and the respondent / Board cannot be permitted to act casually in the matter of valuation of the answer script attempted by the petitioner. In support of his contentions, learned counsel for the petitioner has placed reliance upon the order dated 15/03/2018 passed by the co-ordinate Bench of this Court at Indore in W.P. No. 4517/2017 (Sharinath Das Gupta vs. Board of Secondary Education), whereby, the co-ordinate Bench of this Court by entering into the merits of the answers attempted by the petitioner therein has allowed the writ petition and has directed to award two marks to the petitioner therein. It is also the case of the petitioner that as against 41 marks granted to her in the subject Mathematics, she ought to have been granted more than 70 marks.
4. On the other hand, learned counsel for the respondent/Board opposed the writ petition and submits that there is only provision for retotalling of the marks Signature Not Verified Signed by: SANJAY NAMDEORAO DURGEKAR Signing time: 9/19/2025 7:57:12 PM NEUTRAL CITATION NO. 2025:MPHC-GWL:22098 3 WP-6734-2014 allotted. There is a bar in the governing regulation against revaluation and, therefore, the prayer made by the petitioner for revaluation of the answer script is not legally tenable. He further submits that retotalling of the marks awarded to the petitioner has been done by the Board and the result is "no change". So far as revaluation is concerned, the same is not permissible in the light of the orders passed by this Court in various cases including order dated 02/04/2024 passed in W.P. No. 28067/2023 (Aakansha Singh Gehlot vs. Madhya Pradesh Medical Science University) and the order dated 20/05/2024 passed by this Divsion Bench of this Court in W.A. No. 1093/2024 (Aakansha Singh Gehlot vs. Madhya Pradesh Medical Science University). Accordingly, he prays for dismissal of the instant writ petition.
5. No other point has been pressed by learned counsel for the parties.
6. Heard learned counsel for the rival parties and perused the material available on record.
7. The law as regards the direction for revaluation of the answer scripts of the students in the absence of there being any provision in the extant rules and regulations has been considered by the Hon'ble Supreme Court in the case of Ran Vijay Singh and others Vs. State of Uttar Pradesh and others, reported in AIR 2018 SC 52, and also in the case of High Court of Tripura Through The Registrar General Vs. Tirtha Sarathi Mukherjee & Others, vide order dated 06.02.2019 passed in Civil Appeal No.1264/2019.
8. In the case of Ran Vijay Singh and others (supra), the Apex Court culled out certain principles which are as under:
"30. The law on the subject is therefore, quite clear and we only propose to highlight a few significant Signature Not Verified Signed by: SANJAY NAMDEORAO DURGEKAR Signing time: 9/19/2025 7:57:12 PM NEUTRAL CITATION NO. 2025:MPHC-GWL:22098 4 WP-6734-2014 conclusions. They are:
30.1. If a statute, Rule or Regulation governing an examination permits the re-evaluation of an answer sheet or scrutiny of an answer sheet as a matter of right, then the authority conducting the examination may permit it;
30.2. If a statute, Rule or Regulation governing an examination does not permit re-evaluation or scrutiny of an answer sheet (as distinct from prohibiting it) then the Court may permit re-
evaluation or scrutiny only if it is demonstrated very clearly, without any "inferential process of reasoning or by a process of rationalisation" and only in rare or exceptional cases that a material error has been committed;
30.3. The Court should not at all re-evaluate or scrutinize the answer sheets of a candidate - it has no expertise in the matter and academic matters are best left to academics;
30.4. The Court should presume the correctness of the key answers and proceed on that assumption;
and 30.5. In the event of a doubt, the benefit should go to the examination authority rather than to the candidate.
31. On our part we may add that sympathy or compassion does not play any role in the matter of directing or not directing re-evaluation of an answer sheet. If an error is committed by the examination authority, the complete body of candidates suffers. The entire examination process does not deserve to be derailed only because some candidates are disappointed or dissatisfied or perceive some injustice having been caused to them by an erroneous question or an erroneous answer. All candidates suffer equally, though some might suffer more but that cannot be helped since mathematical precision is not always possible. This Court has shown one way out of an impasse -
exclude the suspect or offending question.
32. It is rather unfortunate that despite several decisions of this Court, some of which have been Signature Not Verified Signed by: SANJAY NAMDEORAO DURGEKAR Signing time: 9/19/2025 7:57:12 PM NEUTRAL CITATION NO. 2025:MPHC-GWL:22098 5 WP-6734-2014 discussed above, there is interference by the Courts in the result of examinations. This places the examination authorities in an unenviable position where they are under scrutiny and not the candidates. Additionally, a massive and sometimes prolonged examination exercise concludes with an air of uncertainty. While there is no doubt that candidates put in a tremendous effort in preparing for an examination, it must not be forgotten that even the examination authorities put in equally great efforts to successfully conduct an examination. The enormity of the task might reveal some lapse at a later stage, but the Court must consider the internal checks and balances put in place by the examination authorities before interfering with the efforts put in by the candidates who have successfully participated in the examination and the examination authorities. The present appeals are a classic example of the consequence of such interference where there is no finality to the result of the examinations even after a lapse of eight years. Apart from the examination authorities even the candidates are left wondering about the certainty or otherwise of the result of the examination - whether they have passed or not;
whether their result will be approved or disapproved by the Court; whether they will get admission in a college or University or not; and whether they will get recruited or not. This unsatisfactory situation does not work to anybody's advantage and such a state of uncertainty results in confusion being worse confounded. The overall and larger impact of all this is that public interest suffers."
9. The Supreme Court in the case of High Court of Tripura Through The Registrar General Vs. Tirtha Sarathi Mukherjee & Ors. by order dated 6/2/2019 passed in Civil Appeal No.1264/2019 has held as under:-
"18. We have noticed the decisions of this Court. Undoubtedly, a three Judge Bench has laid down that there is no legal right to claim or ask for revaluation in the absence of any provision for revaluation. Undoubtedly, there is no provision. In fact, the High Court in the impugned judgment has also proceeded on the said basis. The first question Signature Not Verified Signed by: SANJAY NAMDEORAO DURGEKAR Signing time: 9/19/2025 7:57:12 PM NEUTRAL CITATION NO. 2025:MPHC-GWL:22098 6 WP-6734-2014 which we would have to answer is whether despite the absence of any provision, are the courts completely denuded of power in the exercise of the jurisdiction under Article 226 of the Constitution to direct revaluation? It is true that the right to seek a writ of mandamus is based on the existence of a legal right and the corresponding duty with the answering respondent to carry out the public duty. Thus, as of right, it is clear that the first respondent could not maintain either writ petition or the review petition demanding holding of revaluation.
19. The question however arises whether even if there is no legal right to demand revaluation as of right could there arise circumstances which leaves the Court in any doubt at all. A grave injustice may be occasioned to a writ applicant in certain circumstances. The case may arise where even though there is no provision for revaluation it turns out that despite giving the correct answer no marks are awarded. No doubt this must be confined to a case where there is no dispute about the correctness of the answer. Further, if there is any doubt, the doubt should be resolved in favour of the examining body rather than in favour of the candidate. The wide power under Article 226 may continue to be available even though there is no provision for revaluation despite having giving correct answer and about which there cannot be even slightest manner of doubt, he is treated as having given the wrong answer and consequently the candidate is found disentitled to any marks. 2 0 . Should the second circumstance be demonstrated to be present before the writ court, can the writ court become helpless despite the vast reservoir of power which it possesses? It is one thing to say that the absence of provision for revaluation will not enable the candidate to claim the right of evaluation as a matter of right and another to say that in no circumstances whatsoever where there is no provision for revaluation will the writ court exercise its undoubted constitutional powers? We reiterate that the situation can only be rare and exceptional."
10. The Division Bench of this Court (Principal Seat at Jabalpur) in the case of Ankur Sharma & Others Vs. The Madhya Pradesh Medical Science University and Another, in W.P. No.7654/2022 decided on 07.09.2022 has culled out certain exigencies, wherein the order for revaluation of the answer scripts can be issued which can be summarized as under:
Signature Not Verified Signed by: SANJAY NAMDEORAO DURGEKAR Signing time: 9/19/2025 7:57:12 PMNEUTRAL CITATION NO. 2025:MPHC-GWL:22098 7 WP-6734-2014
(i) Where student is bright.
(ii) When injustice have been done.
(iii) Re-valuation can be specially in the cases of Mathematics and Science.
(iv) If Court finds gross discrepancies in the answer book then reevaluation can be ordered.
11. In the aforesaid proposition of settled law, the facts of the instant case when examined, it is noteworthy that though the subject in which, the revaluation has been sought for by the petitioner is of Mathematics, however, the questions/answers are not objective type, but the answers are required to be attempted by the student step wise in detail.
12. This Court though not an expert in the subject yet by the assistance of learned counsel for the petitioner, did comparison of questions Nos. 13, 16, 18, 19, 21 & 23 attempted by the petitioner with that of Board Sample Question Paper Set 'A' Mathematics (Annexure P/5) and even on mere ocular comparison, it could be gathered that in some of the questions though final answers of the petitioner tallies with the final answers in the Board Sample Question Paper, but the steps for reaching at the respective answers attempted by the petitioner is not as per the Board Sample Question Paper Set 'A'. Usually in subject Mathematics, marks are awarded on the basis of step wise attempt made by the students while reaching at the final answer.
Thus, this Court is of the considered opinion that no case for referring answer scripts of the petitioner for revaluation on merit is made out.
13. Insofar as, the contention of the petitioner that in the tabulation/consolidation coloumn, no mark has been reflected against question no.17, though the petitioner has secured one mark and one mark being reflected against question no.14 though the petitioner has secured zero mark in the said question is concerned, the respondents Signature Not Verified Signed by: SANJAY NAMDEORAO DURGEKAR Signing time: 9/19/2025 7:57:12 PM NEUTRAL CITATION NO. 2025:MPHC-GWL:22098 8 WP-6734-2014 have stated in their return that retotalling of the marks awarded to the petitioner has been done which has resulted in " no change" . Even on that count, this Court is of the considered opinion that no prejudice has been caused to the petitioner by the aforesaid bona fide mistake, as the total of the petitioner remains same, i.e., 41 out of total 100 marks. The claim of the petitioner that she ought to have been granted 70 marks in the paper in question, appears to be unfounded and exaggerated. In fact, the petitioner by way of filing the instant writ petition has sought for a roving enquiry, which may not be permissible.
14. In the conspectus of facts and circumstances of the case, no manifest illegality or palpable perversity is reflected. No cogent ground has been pointed out by counsel for the petitioner to show indulgence in the case in hand. Thus, no case for interference is made out under the discretionary jurisdiction of this Court by exercising power under Article 226 of the Constitution of India. Petitioner has to work hard to ameliorate herself.
15. Petition sans merits and is hereby dismissed.
16. All interlocutory applications, if any, stand disposed of. There shall be no order as to costs.
(AMIT SETH) JUDGE Durgekar Signature Not Verified Signed by: SANJAY NAMDEORAO DURGEKAR Signing time: 9/19/2025 7:57:12 PM