DHJS Exam: Delhi HC refuses answer sheet re-evaluation of aspirant falling short of 1 mark

NEW DELHI : The Delhi High Court has refused to direct re-evaluation of one of the answer sheets of a Delhi Higher Judiciary Services (DHJS) aspirant who was one-mark short of the qualifying threshold for the next round in the competitive test. Calling it “undoubtedly a hard case”, a bench by Justice Vibhu Bakhru noted that the petitioner, a lawyer, scored the “highest amongst all unsuccessful candidates” but in the absence of a flaw in the marking system or the procedure followed for evaluation, the court cannot lend any assistance to him.

The bench, also comprising Justice Amit Mahajan, added that the court may exercise power under Article 226 of the Constitution to provide relief in “rare and exceptional cases where it is established that there is a manifest error in evaluation of examination papers” or were there the right of candidates for a fair evaluation in accordance with the specified procedure has impinged. The petitioner failed to score the qualifying marks only in one of the examination papers i.e 'Law-III' while scoring “significantly higher marks” in the remaining papers in the DHJS Main (written) examination and was thus eliminated from the competitive examination.

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“Undoubtedly, this is a hard case where a meritorious candidate has not met the requisite cut-off. However, this Court is unable to accept that there is any manifest error in the marking system or any systematic failure,” said the court in its order dated September 12. “It is relevant to note that answers to the questions set in the paper for Law-III were essay-type questions and were evaluated subjectively. This Court is informed that to ensure consistency, the answer sheets were evaluated by the same examiner. It is possible that on a re-evaluation, the petitioner may secure higher marks. 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 further noted instances of other similarly placed candidates and observed that if re-evaluation is permitted, it would also be necessary to do so for other candidates as well. The court also considered that “undeniably” the marking was strict as fifty-four candidates failed to qualify the examination paper in question but added, “even though the marking has been somewhat strict, a sufficient number of candidates have secured the qualifying marks”.