CHANDRAVADAN RANGILDAS DHRUV Vs. GUJARAT GOVERNMENT

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This writ petition in the nature of Public Interest Litigation has been filed by the petitioner, who is a journalist and a public spirited person, praying that preliminary examinations held by the respondent no.2 -Gujarat Public Service Commission ["Commission" for short] should be cancelled, disciplinary action be taken against the responsible persons and fresh examination should be held.

(2.) An advertisement was published by General Administrative Department of Government of Gujarat, inviting applications from candidates for filling up 376 vacancies in different govt. departments for recruitment of Class -I and Class -II officers, for shortlisting of candidates for the main examination. It appears that preliminary examination was held by the respondent no.2 - Commission on 12th October, 2014 in which about 2.43 Lac candidates appeared. It further appears that provisional answer key was published on 23rd October, 2014 and it was indicated that if any answer therein is wrong, the same may be informed to the Commission. Accordingly, various candidates informed the Commission about the wrong answers. The Commission accepted that in the first paper, three answers were wrong; in the second paper, six answers were wrong and in the third paper, 18 answers were wrong. Thus, total 27 mistakes were found in the answer key. In view of such mistakes which were accepted by the Commission, the Commission did not consider the answers to those 27 questions qua those candidates who attempted those questions and thereafter declared the result of the preliminary examination.

(3.) According to the petitioner, who has appeared as party -in - person, the entire examination is required to be cancelled and the preliminary examination should be held afresh with correct question papers.