Ran Vijay Singh vs State Of U.P. .

3. More than 36,000 candidates took the written examination held pursuant to the advertisement and the result of the written examination was declared by the Board on 18th June, 2010. It may be mentioned that the written examination was based on multiple choice answers which were to be scanned on OMR sheets.

4. The candidates who qualified in the written examination were called for an interview held between 16th and 26th July, 2010. Eventually, the combined result (written examination and interview) was declared on 14th September, 2010. According to the appellants, they were successful in the written examination as well as in the interview and were amongst those who were in the select list for recruitment.

7. On this basis, the learned Single Judge passed a judgment and order dated 8th February, 2012 directing re-examination of the answer sheets of these 77 writ petitioners. It was further directed that in case these writ petitioners are selected then those at the bottom of the select list would automatically have to be pushed out.

11. Following up on this, the judgment and order passed by the learned Single Judge was implemented on 10th September, 2012 and the re- evaluated results of the written examination of all candidates were declared. As a result of the re-evaluation, it appears that some candidates, who were declared successful in the combined result declared on 14th September, 2010 were now declared unsuccessful. The appellants before us were not affected by the re-evaluation of the written examination and continued in the select list.

32. It is rather unfortunate that despite several decisions of this Court, some of which have been discussed above, there is interference by the Courts in the result of examinations. This places the examination authorities in an unenviable position where they are under scrutiny and not the candidates. Additionally, a massive and sometimes prolonged examination exercise concludes with an air of uncertainty. While there is no doubt that candidates put in a tremendous effort in preparing for an examination, it must not be forgotten that even the examination authorities put in equally great efforts to successfully conduct an examination. The enormity of the task might reveal some lapse at a later stage, but the Court must consider the internal checks and balances put in place by the examination authorities before interfering with the efforts put in by the C.A. Nos.367 of 2017 etc. Page 17 of 21 candidates who have successfully participated in the examination and the examination authorities. The present appeals are a classic example of the consequence of such interference where there is no finality to the result of the examinations even after a lapse of eight years. Apart from the examination authorities even the candidates are left wondering about the certainty or otherwise of the result of the examination – whether they have passed or not; whether their result will be approved or disapproved by the Court; whether they will get admission in a college or University or not; and whether they will get recruited or not. This unsatisfactory situation does not work to anybody’s advantage and such a state of uncertainty results in confusion being worse confounded. The overall and larger impact of all this is that public interest suffers.

C.A. Nos.367 of 2017 etc. Page 18 of 21

34. Having come to the conclusion that the High Court (the learned Single Judge as well as the Division Bench) ought to have been far more circumspect in interfering and deciding on the correctness of the key answers, the situation today is that there is a third evaluation of the answer sheets and a third set of results is now ready for declaration. Given this scenario, the options before us are to nullify the entire re-evaluation process and depend on the result declared on 14 th September, 2010 or to go by the third set of results. Cancelling the examination is not an option. Whichever option is chosen, there will be some candidates who are likely to suffer and lose their jobs while some might be entitled to consideration for employment.

35. Having weighed the options before us, we are of opinion that the middle path is perhaps the best path to be taken under the circumstances of the case. The middle path is to declare the third set of results since the Board has undertaken a massive exercise under the directions of the High Court and yet protect those candidates may now be declared unsuccessful but are working as Trained Graduate Teachers a result of the first or the second declaration of results. It is also possible that consequent upon the third declaration of results some new candidates might get selected and should that happen, they will need to be accommodated since they were erroneously not selected on earlier occasions.

C.A. Nos.367 of 2017 etc. Page 19 of 21

37. As a result of our discussion and taking into consideration all the possibilities that might arise, we issue the following directions:

39. With the above directions, the appeals and miscellaneous applications are disposed of.

...……………………J (Madan B. Lokur) .…………………....J (Deepak Gupta) New Delhi;

December 11, 2017 C.A. Nos.367 of 2017 etc. Page 21 of 21