- (1.) The writ petitioners have sought for issue of writ of mandamus to direct respondents to produce the OMR (optical mark recognition) answer-sheets of the petitioners for the written examination conducted by the second respondent, namely, the Haryana Staff Selection Commission for appointment to the post of Mandi Supervisors in the Haryana State Agriculture Marketing Board, arrayed as the first respondent. The written test was held on 20.04.2008 and the petitioners were admittedly participants in the said test. The result was published on 31.05.2008 and it is a matter of record that among the selected candidates in the written test who were short listed for interview, the petitioners did not figure. Even before the result was published, the second petitioner had sought for information under RTI Act, the details of questions asked in the exams held for the previous year as well as the current year since the petitioners claimed that several questions were the same for both the years. After the result was published on 31.05.2008, the said second petitioner had sought for the marks obtained by him and had submitted a self-addressed envelope with due stamps on 12.06.2008 with appropriate costs. The second petitioner had also pointed out to the fact that some of the questions had been wrongly set, but before there was any response, both the petitioners had filed a writ petition on 08.07.2008 seeking for the reliefs outlined above.
(2.) The learned counsel for the petitioners points out that there had been a communication received from Advocate General's office to the second respondent apprising them about the institution of the writ petition and seeking for the records to be produced in Court. When the records did come, it was only with reference to the marks obtained by various candidates and the Government took a stand that the original answer-sheets had been destroyed on 25.10.2008. In fact, the prayer in the writ petition for production of the OMR answer-sheets has become incapable of compliance by an admitted situation that the answer-sheets of the petitioners as well as all other candidates have been destroyed.
(3.) The answer-sheets themselves have no value except that they give out results of candidates that give passage for appointment to public posts. The issue could be, therefore, whether the non-production, in any way materially affected the petitioners cause. The petitioners' grievance had been that they had performed very well in the exams and they were sure to have been qualified for attending the interview and would have been also selected. Even apart from the absence of answer-sheets, if there was no information at all about the marks that they have secured, the non-production of the answer-sheets would have been material. In this case, there has been an information of the marks secured not merely of the petitioners but of the marks secured by all the candidates through their reference to the original computer print outs of the appraisals of OMR sheets. It is a matter of record and which is admitted that the cut off marks for BCA candidates were 198 and for SC candidates, they were 190, for being called for interview. The information supplied is that the first petitioner had 182 marks and the second petitioner had 146 marks which would mean that both the candidates had not qualified for being called for the interview. If it was merely a statement of marks that has been produced, there could be a cause for genuine complaint. On the other hand, as observed already, the computer printouts of the dedicated scanner device containing the details of the question with respective choices of answers against each question (from among choices (a) to (d) for each candidate have been produced before this Court. It is a matter of technical information that OMR answer-sheets give themselves to a process of image capturing from the answer-sheets through a technique called contrasting reflectivity at pre-determined positions on a page, which is later utilized to detect the marked areas by the fact that they reflect less light than the blank areas of the paper.;