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11. The second complaint is that the answer books were not made available to the petitioners during the enquiry. There is no rule under which the petitioners were entitled to see the answer books. The principles of natural Justice do not require that the answer books should be shown to the delinquent examinee. They merely require the affording of an opportunity to explain or meet the charges. This requirement was fully satisfied in the present case. Moreover, in view of the nature of plea taken by the petitioners it cannot be said that they have been prejudiced by non-disclosure of the answer books. Similarity of the answers to the questions as mentioned in the charges is not disputed by the petitioners. The common plea of all the petitioners is that they prepared from the book "B. A. History in the form of question answer" written by Shri Nabakishore Karmee, the Professor of History of the Christ College and the class notes dictated by him. Their contention is that as they prepared from a common source, the answers became similar.

14. From the records produced before us we cannot say that the decision for cancellation of the result of examination was based on no evidence. We have looked into the book written by Shri Karmee, the question of History Paper II and the answer books of the petitioners which were made available to us by the learned counsel for the opposite party during hearing of the writ petitions. We are satisfied on a comparison of answers to question No. 2 given by the petitioners in O. J. C. Nos. 764, 824, 826 and 763 of 1975 with the answer given in the book of Shri Karmee that they are almost indentical. The question No. 2 runs as follows. "Trace the role of Nurjahan during the rule of Jahangir." The answer to this question occurs at pages 60 to 63 of the book of Shri Karmee. Normally it is not possible for a candidate to reproduce such a lengthy answer from memory. The language and the manner of writing clearly suggest that the answers were the result of copying. The seat chart (Annexure A) shows that the petitioners in O. J. C. Nos. 764/75 and 824/75 were in the first row, the petitioner in O. J. C. No. 826/75 was in the second row and the petitioner in O. J. C. No. 763/75 was in the third row. In view of the position of the petitioners as shown in the chart it is not unlikely that they received help from each other or took help from a common source.

We also compared the answer of petitioners in O. J. C. Nos. 825/75 and 824/75 (Roll Nos. 732 and 733 respectively) in respect of question No. 8 and found that they tallied word for word. The seat chart (Annexure A) shows that Roll No, 733 was sitting just behind Roll No. 732 in the (first row. It is therefore quite probable that they took help from each other or from a common source in answering question No. 8.

We also compared the answer of petitioner in O. J. C. No. 827/75 bearing Roll No. 1929 with that of another candidate bearing Roll No. 1927 in respect of question No. 8 and found that they are similar. The seat chart (Annexure A) shows that the petitioner in O. J. C. No. 827/75 was sitting just behind the candidate bearing Roll No, 1927 in the fourth row. It is therefore quite probable that they took help from each other or from a common source in answering question No. 8.