- (1.) Heard Sri Pashupati Nath Pandey, Advocate on behalf of the petitioner and Sri M. N. Singh, Advocate on behalf of the U.P. Public Service Commission.
(2.) Facts leading to the present writ petition are as follows: The U. P. Public Service Commission (hereinafter referred as the Commission) published an advertisement inviting applications for the U.P. Judicial Service Civil Judge (Junior Division) Examination 2013. The examination was to be conducted in three parts, preliminary, written examination and personality test. Petitioners applied in pursuance to the advertisement and participated in the preliminary examination. The preliminary examination comprised of two papers, (a) General Studies comprising of 150 questions & (b) Law comprising of 150 questions. The preliminary examination was held on objective type format. The result of the preliminary examination was declared after publication of the key answers. Large number of writ petitions leading being Writ Petition No.51811 of 2013 were filed before the High Court challenging the key answers to the objective questions. It was the case of the petitioners that the preparation of the merit list in respect of the preliminary examination was vitiated because of such wrong key answers. After exchange of affidavits and after obtaining report of the experts on the subject, the Commission informed the Hon'ble High Court that a decision has been taken to delete all the objective questions, which had been reported to carry more than one correct answer as per two different conflicting expert reports and that they shall re-evaluate the answer sheets of all the candidates and declare the result afresh.
(3.) The High Court found the view taken by the Commission to be fair and just. Accordingly, the writ petitions were disposed of vide judgment and order dated 13.12.2013. The operative portion of the judgment of the Hon'ble High Court reads as follows : "12. We, therefore, accept the decision taken by the Commission to delete as many as nine law questions (two were deleted earlier and seven subsequent to our order dated 26.09.2013). Likewise, we accept the decision of the Commission to delete six questions in the general knowledge paper (four questions were deleted earlier by the Commission and two questions were deleted pursuant to our order dated 26.09.2013). The Commission will evaluate the answers of the respective candidates on the basis of its decision, as approved herein above, and would publish a fresh merit list of the U.P. Judicial Service, Civil Judge (Junior Division) Preliminary Examination 2013, in accordance with law, within three weeks from today, and would thereafter hold the Mains Examination, in accordance with law. 13. With the aforesaid observations/directions, the writ petitions stand disposed of.";