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Submissions on behalf of the petitioners:-

7. Learned counsel for the petitioners submits that OMR Sheet / Answer Sheet is in two parts. In the first part, if there is any error, then as per instructions, the Answer Sheet / OMR Sheet is not to be evaluated and the candidature will automatically be rejected. The second part of the OMR Sheet / Answer Sheet contains questions to be answered by a candidate. If there is no error in the first part of the OMR Sheet, but there is some minor mistake in marking answers to questions in the second part of the OMR Sheet then the respondent - U.P. Secondary Education Selection Board cannot say that entire answers given in the OMR Sheet shall not be evaluated at all. The stand taken by the learned standing counsel that OMR Sheet cannot be evaluated even in case of minor human errors, is contrary to the instructions of the respondent.

Discussion and Findings:-

9. I have carefully considered the submissions of learned counsels for the parties.

10. The respondents have neither stated in the counter affidavit nor placed any material before this Court which may indicate that the aforequoted instructions of the OMR Answer sheet has statutory force. There is no statutory provision which disentitles a candidate from evaluation of his Answer sheet, who, by inadvertence or due to human error marked one or two answer circles of a subject other than the two subjects opted by him in the first part of the OMR Answer sheet.

Human Error:-

17. The concept of human error or inadvertent error has been explained in brief by Hon'ble Supreme Court in Price Water, Coopers (P) Ltd. Vs. CIT (2012) 11 SCC 316 (paragraph 15), as under:-

"The contents of the Tax Audit Report suggest that there is no question of the assessee concealing its income. There is also no question of the assessee furnishing any inaccurate particulars. It appears to us that all that has happened in the present case is that through a bona fide and inadvertent error, the assessee while submitting its return, failed to add the provision for gratuity to its total income. This can only be described as a human error which we are all prone to make. The calibre and expertise of the assessee has little or nothing to do with the inadvertent error. That the assessee should have been careful cannot be doubted, but the absence of due care, in a case such as the present, does not mean that the assessee is guilty of either furnishing inaccurate particulars or attempting to conceal its income."

(emphasis supplied)

18. The petitioners have opted two subjects in Part-I and marked answers to questions of those subjects in the respective sections in Part-II. Inadvertently and unintentionally, they also marked one or two circles in another section / subject in Part-II. This can only be described as human error. The petitioners should have been careful, but a little inadvertence like the present one cannot deprive them from evaluation of their answers to questions of the subject opted, particularly when there is no statutory prohibition under Rule 12 of the Rules, 1998.