The Delhi High Court declined to order a re-evaluation of one of the answer sheets of a candidate for the Delhi Higher Judiciary Services (DHJS). They fell one mark short of passing the competitive exam and moving on to the next level. A bench led by Justice Vibhu Bakhru described the case as “undoubtedly difficult,” noting that the petitioner, a lawyer, received the “highest score among all unsuccessful candidates,” but that the court was unable to help him because there was no problem with the scoring system or the evaluation process.
The court may use its authority under Article 226 of the Constitution to grant relief in “rare and exceptional cases where it is established that there is a manifest error in the evaluation of examination papers” or where candidates’ rights to a fair evaluation in accordance with the prescribed procedure has been violated, according to the bench, which also included Justice Amit Mahajan. The petitioner was disqualified from the competitive examination because she only failed to achieve the required marks in one of the examination subjects, “Law-III,” while achieving “much higher grades” in the other papers.
It is a difficult situation when a deserving candidate does not reach the required cut-off. In its ruling dated September 12, the court stated, “However, This Court is unwilling to agree that there is any apparent fault in the marking system or any systemic failure.” It’s important to remember that the Law-III exam’s essay-style questions require written responses, and those responses were susceptible to subjective evaluation. This Court is informed that the same examiner assessed the answer sheets in order to maintain consistency. The petitioner might receive better grades after a reevaluation.
However, absent circumstances that indicate any flaw in the marking system or the procedure followed for evaluation of answer sheets, this Court is unable to lend any assistance to the petitioner,” observed the court.
The court also cited instances of other applicants who had been classified similarly and underlined that, if re-evaluation is allowed, it would be required to do so for all candidates. In addition, the court found that the marking was “undeniably” tight because 54 candidates did not pass the relevant test paper, but it also noted that “even though the marking has been relatively strict, a sufficient number of candidates have earned the qualifying marks.”
