Indian Kanoon - Search engine for Indian Law

"15. The findings of the High Court raise a question of great importance to the student community. Normally, one would be inclined to the view, especially if one has been a paper-setter and an examiner, that the key answer furnished by the paper-setter and accepted by the University as correct, should not be allowed to be challenged. One way of achieving it is not to publish the key answer at all. If the University had not published the key answer along with the result of the Test, no controversy would have arisen in this case. But that is not a correct way of looking at these matters which involve the future of hundreds of students who are aspirants for admission to professional courses. If the key answer were kept secret in this case, the remedy would have been worse than the disease because, so many students would have had to suffer the injustice in silence. The publication of the key answer has unravelled an unhappy state of affairs to which the University and the State Government must find a solution. Their sense of fairness in publishing the key answer has given them an opportunity to have a closer look at the system of examinations which they conduct. What has failed is not the computer but the human system.

16. Shri Kacker, who appears on behalf of the University, contended that no challenge should be allowed to be made to the correctness of a key answer unless, on the face of it, it is wrong. We agree that the key answer should be assumed to be correct unless it is proved to be wrong and that it should not be held to be wrong by an inferential process of reasoning or by a process of rationalisation. It must be clearly demonstrated to be wrong, that is to say, it must be such as no reasonable body of men well-versed in the particular subject would regard as correct. The contention of the University is falsified in this case by a large number of acknowledged textbooks, which are commonly read by students in U.P. Those textbooks leave no room for doubt that the answer given by the students is correct and the key answer is incorrect."

(1) moderation;

(2) avoiding ambiguity in the questions;

(3) prompt decisions be taken to exclude suspected questions and no marks be assigned to such questions.

13. As far as the present case is concerned, even before publishing the first list of key answers the Commission had got the key answers moderated by two Expert Committees. Thereafter, objections were invited and a 26-member Committee was constituted to verify the objections and after this exercise the Committee recommended that 5 questions be deleted and in 2 questions, key answers be changed. It can be presumed that these Committees consisted of experts in various subjects for which the examinees were tested. Judges cannot take on the role of experts in academic matters. Unless, the candidate demonstrates that the key answers are patently wrong on the face of it, the courts cannot enter into the academic field, weigh the pros and cons of the arguments given by both sides and then come to the conclusion as to which of the answers is better or more correct.

"17. Unless the Courts, though accustomed to resolve/adjudicate on disputes, curb their temptation to interfere with the question paper and answer key inspite of counter view, of other subject experts, being brought before them and there being thus a dispute as to which view is correct, the Universities and the examining bodies on whom the said function has been entrusted, would loose their sheen and the respect in which they are held. I would go to the extent of saying that if the Courts, which cannot possibly be experts in all subjects, on the basis of opinions to the contrary obtained from other 'independent' subject experts, were to start setting aside the questions and answer keys bona fide prepared by the subject expert and who bona fide continues to believe in correctness thereof, we may reach a day where no self respecting expert would agree to partake in the exercise of setting the question papers and answer key (and which mostly is honorary or for nominal remuneration) for the fear of his/her opinion, bona fide held being pitted against that of other in Court and his name and honour being sullied in the process. We, in my opinion, ought not to allow our Universities and examining bodies being so reduced to a 'medium' as the Supreme Court observed in Tata Cellular instead of Centres of learning and expertise. If they have ceased to be so, the jurisdiction under Article 226 ought to be exercised to set right their functioning rather than the Court taking over the mantle of correcting the question paper set and answer key thereto framed by them." (emphasis supplied)