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Dr. B. S. CHAUHAN, J.

1. Appeal No.907 of 2006 is arising out of the final judgment and order dated 26.12.2005 passed by the High Court of Himachal Pradesh at Shimla in C.W.P. No.1007 of 2005. While Civil Appeal No.897 of 2006 is against the interim order dated 22.11.2005 passed in the said writ petition. As the interim order merges into the final order, Civil Appeal No. 897 of 2006 has lost its efficacy.

2. Facts and circumstances giving rise to these appeals are that the appellant herein, H.P. Public Service Commission (hereinafter called as, "the Commission") advertised 13 vacancies of the Civil Judge (Junior Division) on 2nd April, 2005, providing the eligibility criteria and mode of selection. The respondent No.1 applied in pursuance of the said advertisement along with other candidates. The result of the written papers was declared on 04.09.2005. Respondent No.1 was not found eligible to be called for interview/viva-voce for the reason that he failed to secure 45% marks in the paper of Civil Law - II, though he had secured 50% marks in aggregate. Being aggrieved, the said respondent filed writ petition seeking direction for revaluation of the paper of Civil Law - II and appointment to the said post as a consequential relief. The High Court vide order dated 3rd October, 2005 directed the appellant- Commission to produce his answer sheets before it and the appellant produced the answer sheets of that paper before the High Court on 05.10.2005. The High Court passed an order dated 05.10.2005 directing the appellant to arrange for a special interview for the said respondent in view of the fact that the High Court was of the view that there had been some inconsistency in framing the Question Nos.5 and 8 and in evaluation of the answer to the said questions.

6. Before proceeding further, it may be pertinent to mention here that this Court, vide order dated 13th January, 2006, passed an order for fresh re-valuation of the answer sheets of the respondent No.1 in Civil Law-II by the eminent Professor of Law with the consent of the counsel for the parties. In pursuance of the said order, his answer sheet was sent to an eminent Professor, who examined the same and awarded him only 82 marks in the said paper.

7. Shri Anil Nag, learned counsel for the appellant, has submitted that the Rules 2004 and Regulations, 2005 do not provide for revaluation or rechecking of the answer sheets. Comparative merit of the candidates is assessed and if there is some inconsistency in framing of the questions/marking of a particular question, it would be the same in the case of all the candidates and therefore, it is not permissible for the court to direct revaluation of the answer sheets of a particular candidate. In such an eventuality, the answer sheets of all the candidates should be revalued. The respondent No.1 admittedly failed to secure the qualifying marks in one paper, therefore, the judgment and order of the High Court is liable to be set aside.

(iii) Whether in absence of any statutory provision for revaluation, the court could direct for revaluation.

13. In the instant case, the High Court has dealt with Question Nos.5(a) & (b) and 8(a) & (b) and made the following observations:-

"We perused answer to Question No.5(a) and 5(b) and found that the petitioner has attempted both these answers correctly and the answer to Question No.5(b) was as complete as it could be. Despite the petitioner having attempted a better answer to Question No.5(b) than the answer to Question No.5(a), the petitioner has been awarded 6 marks out of 10 in answer to Question No.5(b) whereas he has been awarded 8 marks in answer to Question No.5(a). Similarly in answer to Question No.8(a) and 8(b) the petitioner has fared better in attempting an answer to Question No.8(b) rather marks out of 10 marks in answer to Question No.8(b) whereas he got 5 marks out of 10 marks in answer to Question No.8(a)."

25. This view has been approved and relied upon and re-iterated by this Court in Pramod Kumar Srivastava Vs. Chairman, Bihar Public Service Commission, Patna & Ors, AIR 2004 SC 4116 observing as under:

"Under the relevant rules of the Commission, there is no provision wherein a candidate may be entitled to ask for re- evaluation of his answer-book. There is a provision for scrutiny only wherein the answer-books are seen for the purpose of checking whether all the answers given by a candidate have been examined and whether there has been any mistake in the totalling of marks of each question and noting them correctly on the first cover page of the answer-book. There is no dispute that after scrutiny no mistake was found in the marks awarded to the appellant in the General Science paper. In the absence of any provision for re-