- (1.) THE present special appeal has been filed against the judgment and order dated 7th December, 2010 passed by the learned Single Judge, wherein the writ petition preferred by the Appellant has been dismissed.
(2.) AN advertisement was published by the U.P. Police Recruitment and Promotion Board, Lucknow on 17th February, 2009 for recruitment of 35,000 constables in U.P. Police. The Appellant who belonged to the 'Other Backward Classes' category also applied for the same. The selection was to be made on the basis of the written examination consisting of 200 marks. The question paper was in four parts of 40 questions each and each part was allotted 50 marks. Thus, each question was of 1.25 marks. A candidate was required to obtain at least 33% marks in each part of the question paper and 35% marks in aggregate. The questions were to be answered in two hours on the OMR sheet. The Petitioner was not selected as she was not able to clear part II of the question paper in which she was required to obtain at least 16.666 marks but she obtained only 15.2777 marks. The result was published in the newspaper on 19th March, 2010. Feeling aggrieved by her non -selection, she approached this Court by means of a writ petition stating therein that in the question paper set up by the Board four questions of Part II and two questions of Part IV were not correct and on this basis the entire selection ought to be annulled and fresh selection to be held. The other plea was that even if the Court comes to the conclusion that selection was valid, the Appellant having answered 12 questions in Part II correctly ought to have been awarded 16.666 marks and, therefore, would have been qualified. The learned Single Judge did not go into the question of annulment of the entire selection on the ground that 4 questions which were not correct in Part II, the marks allocated to those questions have been added in the remaining 36 questions and instead of 1.25 marks for each question each question was allocated 1.388 marks. The learned Single Judge, therefore, dismissed the writ petition. We have heard Sri R.O.V.S. Chauhan, learned Counsel for the Appellant and Sri V.C. Dixit, learned Standing Counsel, who represent the Respondents.
(3.) AS there was some dispute regarding marks awarded to the Appellant in Part II of OMR sheet, learned Standing Counsel vide order dated 2nd February, 2011 was directed to produce the OMR sheet before the Court. The OMR sheet has been produced before the Court today and the Court has perused the same. It appears that the Appellant has included the answer to question No. 42 of Part II given by the Appellant as correct answer, whereas she had put a cross (x) on the second option and has encircled the first option in answer to the said question as a result of which the answer to the question No. 42 became invalid and therefore, Appellant in all attempted 11 questions correctly for which marks have been awarded. Sri R.O.V.S. Chauhan, learned Counsel submitted that on the OMR sheet instructions have been given to fill up OMR sheet wherein it has been given that if one puts a cross mark, tick mark or blacken half portion of the circle to mark it would be an incorrect option whereas blackening of the whole portion has been taken to be correct. On this basis he submitted that by putting a cross mark in the wrong option would not invalidate the answer. The submission is wholly misconceived. The correct way to fill in the OMR sheet has been described and as the Appellant had put a cross on the second option and blackened the first option simultaneously in answer to the question No. 42, it got invalidated and the Appellant cannot claim any mark on the said question. So far as annulling of the entire selection is concerned we find that 4 questions have wrongly been mentioned in the test paper and the Board had rightly been deleted and the marks attributable to those 4 questions have been allocated by enhancing the marks allocated to the remaining questions. Therefore, no fault has been committed on this part.;