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3. The countervailing arguments on behalf of the Commission and the State are that the process was fair and all care was taken to conduct the examination in a proper manner with very limited complaints regarding mismanagement at Bapu Pariksha Parisar (for short 'BPP'), the centre with maximum examinees, and few of the key- answers being wrong. But those issues were resolved by referring the wrong key-answers to the Committee of Experts who have given their reasons for selecting the Patna High Court CWJC No.752 of 2025 dt 28-03-2025 correct answer; and the Commission in its wisdom and experience chose to conduct a re-examination for the candidates of BPP centre only and not for other 912 centres in the entire State of Bihar. The result of successful candidates in the Preliminary Examination has been published in which approximately 21000 students have passed the examination. Their careers could not be lightly dealt with. It was reiterated that there is a need to preserve public confidence in the sanctity of the selection process, but at the same time, there is a requirement of observing fairness towards candidates who invest time and resources in attempting to clear through a selection process and both these considerations have a Constitutional foundation, going beyond service and administrative law principles.

6. For all these allegations, the petitioner has relied on Facebook posts of applicants, most of whom had disclosed their identities and also their roll-numbers to indicate that they were applicants and not persons not interested in the examination process.

7. In CWJC No. 369 of 2025, by 14 petitioners, it was alleged that in the examination held on 13.12.2024, there was a ruckus at BPP Centre at Patna. Message was spread that question paper had leaked. Several of the candidates, on learning about the paper leak, staged a walk- out and also disrupted the entire examination. Question papers were taken out of the centre and circulated on social media with wide reach. Those question papers were also sent by the applicants to the official site of the Economic Offence Unit of the State of Bihar at 1:00 P.M., demanding appropriate legal action. There were other irregularities at BPP Centre, which was not limited to one centre, but such Patna High Court CWJC No.752 of 2025 dt 28-03-2025 disturbances impacted several examination centres across the length and breadth of the State. Another objection raised by the candidates was that they had been given wrong question series and for addressing the aforenoted issues, the Examination Centre Superintendents consumed around 20-45 minutes, eating into the writing time of the applicants. One of the students, namely, Sonu Kumar, having Roll No. 557149, made a specific complaint in this regard to the Commission. Commensurate extra time was not given by the Centre Superintendents. In many of the Centres, as noted above, question papers were not unsealed in presence of the candidates and there were no holograms on the admit-cards. Another serious complaint was that even jammers were not functional during the entire examination duration, giving a strong suspicion towards leak of question paper and resultant impurity of the examination. The very fact of changing the examination centre of several thousand students only a few days before the schedule date of examination reflected complete lack of preparedness of the Commission to hold examination at such a scale. In the re-examination held on 04.01.2025, Patna High Court CWJC No.752 of 2025 dt 28-03-2025 though approximately 8000 candidates had downloaded the admit-cards, but only 5943 candidates had taken the examination. An inquiry also was started by Economic Offence Unit, about which the candidates came to learn from the newspaper reports. There was serious objection to the Commission considering to take re-examination only with respect to one centre, even though malpractices were alleged at different centres in different districts. The Secretary of the Commission is alleged to have made a statement at large that scaling would be applied in formulating the results, about which there was no reference either in the advertisement or in the SOP published by the Commission.

18. The Centre Superintendents of all the 912 examination centres reported that the examination on 13.12.2024 was conducted peacefully. However, there was disturbance at one of the centres, namely, BPP centre at Patna. A detailed report was thus sought for and received by the Commission on 15.12.2024 from the District Magistrate, Patna. The report indicated that few undesirable elements/applicants created ruckus in the BPP Centre and after snatching question papers, took it outside the examination hall. Those candidates only spread rumours that the examination was being cancelled. They disturbed the other candidates who were writing their papers peacefully. The report further indicates that some of them threatened the Centre Superintendent to announce that the exam had been cancelled. It was in this connection that some of the question booklets were taken out of the examination centre, but it was around 1:00 P.M.

19. Repelling the contention of the petitioners, the Commission has claimed that all printed question booklets kept in TES Bags were opened in front of the Patna High Court CWJC No.752 of 2025 dt 28-03-2025 candidates/their representatives. However, the report admitted of delay of about 10-15 minutes in distribution of question papers because of the enormous size of the BPP centre with five floors. Despite the candidates having been told that they would get 10-15 minutes extra time as per the general practice, with a determined mind-set, few of the candidates, who perhaps were not interested in writing the exam, created the disturbance. Criminal case was also instituted against some of the students. It appeared that there was a well-thought conspiracy to create disturbance and chaos at BPP centre with a view to have the examination cancelled.