Document Fragment View

Matching Fragments

The petitioners, who have appeared at Preliminary Written Examination of the Odisha Judicial Service Examination, 2015 held on 31.5.2015, have filed these petitions challenging the said examination, inter alia or the ground that the setting up question was defective, inasmuch as there were spelling mistakes, printing errors, discrepancies in the questions having doubtful answers and even wrong answers etc.

2. The short fact of the case, in hand, is that in order to fill up 69 vacancies in Odisha Judicial Service, requisition was made by the Law Department on 19.2.2015, which was received by the Odisha Public Service Commission, in short „OPSC‟ on 12.3.2015 and accordingly, a tentative time schedule for completion of recruitment process of Civil Judges in Odisha Judicial Service, 2015 was prepared by OPSC. Accordingly, Advertisement No.07 of 2014-15 was issued on 12.3.2015. Since it is a time bound programme, instruction was given to OCAC to develop online application form meant for Odisha Judicial Service Examination, 2015. Due to delay by one and half months of receipt of requisition, advertisement was issued by the OPSC on 12.3.2015 vide Annexure-1 inviting online applications from the eligible candidates fixing the last date for submission of such form as 15.4.2015 by 11.59 P.M. and the last date of receipt of application fee at any Branch of State Bank of India by 17.4.2015. In the said advertisement it has been stated that the online proforma for application form is to be made available in the website, i.e. http://opsc.gov.in or http://opsconline.gov.in from 15.4.2015 by 11.59 P.M for admission to the competitive examination consisting of three parts, i.e., preliminary written examination, main written examination and interview to be conducted by the OPSC under the provisions of the Odisha Superior Judicial Service & Odisha Judicial Service Rules, 2007 (as amended from time to time) for recruitment to 69 posts of Civil Judges in Odisha Judicial Service under the Law Department by direct recruitment in the Pay Scale of Rs.27,700-770-33,090-920-40, 450-1080-44,770/-with usual Dearness Allowance and other allowances as sanctioned by the Government of Odisha from time to time and admissible to the employee. It is further stated that only online applications are invited from the candidates for admission to the OJS preliminary written examination. After declaration of result of the preliminary examination, the candidates who qualify, will be required to submit the printout/ hard copy of online application form, along with the photocopies of the other documents as stated in paragraph 8 of the advertisement on or before the date to be notified later, for consideration of their eligibility. The vacancy position as per the requisition filed by the Law Department of Government of Odisha along with the reservation thereof is given below:

6. Mr.Ashutosh Mishra, learned counsel for the petitioner in W.P.(C) No. 13086 of 2015 supports the stand taken by Mr.B.P.Tripathy, learned counsel in the other writ petition and states that in some questions though correct option is available, but the OPSC has shown another option as correct option and he has cited the example of Question No. 30 wherein for the said question, out of the four options, Option-A would be the correct answer, but the OPSC has published Option-C as the correct answer. Though such objection has been raised before the OPSC, the same has not been taken into consideration and suggestion has been given for pro rata marking, which would cause great prejudice to the examinees when there is negative marking system. It is further urged that in a competitive examination, it is never expected that almost 30% of the total questions would be wrong and ambiguous and if large number of questions are wrong and ambiguous, in that case, the Court should set aside the entire process of examination and should direct the authorities to conduct fresh examination within a stipulated period without allowing the OPSC to award pro rata marking. To substantiate his case, he has relied upon the judgments in Rajesh Kumar and others v. State of Bihar and others, AIR 2013 SC 2652 and Gunjan Sinha Jain v. Registrar General, High Court of Delhi, W.P.(C) No. 449 of 2012 along with connected matters disposed of on 9th April, 2012.

8. On the above mentioned factual backdrop of the case in hand, considering the contentions raised by the learned counsel for the petitioners, immediate steps have been taken directing the learned counsel for the OPSC to file counter affidavit indicating the factum of commission of mistakes in the questions supplied, which have been notified in the website of the Commission and objection have been invited from the candidates, who have appeared the Preliminary Written Examination of Odisha Judicial Service Examination, 2015. The expert committee has been constituted to verify the correctness of such objection and the questions so framed, but no decision has been taken as the process of receiving objection is under progress. Therefore, this Court passed an interim order on 23.6.2015 that the result of Preliminary Written Examination of Odisha Judicial Service Examination, 2015 shall not be published till 13th July, 2015. On 13.7.2015, Mr.P.K.Mohanty, learned Senior counsel appearing for the OPSC produced the proceedings of the expert committee constituted by the OPSC to examine the correctness of the answer key to the questions of Preliminary Written Examination for recruitment to the post of Civil Judges of Odisha Judicial Service Examination, 2015 and also the extract of the note-sheet of the OPSC wherein it has been admitted that there are errors in 24 questions prepared by the OPSC and suggestion has been made by the OPSC that marks should be awarded on the basis of 76 questions and the marks secured by the candidate will be prorated to arrive at a total mark to be awarded out of 100 marks to the candidates. The report of the Expert Committee constituted by the OPSC headed by Prof(Dr.) Prabir Kumar Pattnaik, SNIL, SOA University, Bhubaneswar, Dr.M.S.Dash, Dean, HOD, P.G. Department of Law, Utkal University and Dr.S.A.K.Azad, Principal, University Law College, Bhubaneswar, examined the questions, answer keys and the objections/ suggestion/ comments of the applicants in respect of Question (Test) Booklet Series-A, in respect of each questions is as follows :

Relying on the above mentioned judgments of the Apex Court, Mr.P.K.Mohanty, learned Sr.Counsel for the OPSC states that since the Expert Committee found that there are 24 wrong questions on various counts, excluding the said 24 questions, the OPSC should be allowed to award pro-rata marking in rest 76 questions out of 100 and to proceed with the selection process.

11. In the above mentioned cases, which are referred to on behalf of the OPSC, the Apex Court has taken into consideration that there is marginal error, which is confined to the examinees within 10 out of 100-150 questions, but here is a case where out of 100 questions, the petitioners have alleged that 34 questions are wrong as mentioned supra and admittedly as per the report of the Expert Committee constituted by the OPSC, 24 questions are wrong. If the contention of the petitioners would be accepted that 34 questions are wrong, then it exceeds 1/3rd of the total questions. Even accepting the report of the Expert Committee, such errors are also nearly 1/4th of the total questions. Therefore, in the cases referred to on behalf of the OPSC, such a contingency had not arisen to be considered by the Apex Court.