Regrettable that competitive exam candidates resort to malpractices; make honest students suffer: Delhi HC

NEW DELHI : The Delhi High Court has termed regrettable candidates of competitive examinations resorting to malpractices and tampering to succeed in the tests that results in innocent and sincere students becoming victims of disorderly conduct of their colleagues. The high court said such situations do not leave the state or its agencies with any other option but to cancel the examination altogether.

"It is observed that it becomes extremely difficult for the agencies conducting such examinations to determine and identify exactly how many students have engaged in such malpractices and irregularities," Justice Chandra Dhari Singh said. The high court made the observations while dismissing a petition by several candidates who applied for the post of Junior Assistant or Office Assistant in the vacancy notified by Delhi Skill Entrepreneurship University (DSEU).

However, the examination was cancelled by the university after cases of tampering and use of unfair means were detected in the Computer Based Recruitment Test (CBRT) at two centres. The petitioners' counsel said only a few cases of use of unfair means were detected at two centres and therefore, the DSEU's action of cancelling the entire examination is arbitrary and unreasonable.

The high court dismissed the plea saying that a writ of mandamus or any other writ cannot be issued in this instant petition, as DSEU was well within its authority when it cancelled the examination process, in order to maintain the sanctity of the same. "It is a well-settled principle of law that the selection process cannot be tainted. Maintaining the sanctity of the selection process is of utmost importance while conducting an examination of any kind. Any tampering with the same, might result in suffering caused to the candidates who participate in such examination process with honesty, however, there may be certain situations wherein the nature of the irregularities may be varied making it impossible to determine the number of candidates involved in the said irregularity," Justice Singh said.

The court further said, "It is regrettable that the candidates appearing for such competitive examinations pertaining to recruitment have to resort to such methods in order to succeed in such examinations and as a result of the same innocent and sincere students become victims of such disorderly conduct of their colleagues."

It said in the case the CBRT, a computer-based examination was tampered with, which is evident by the two FIRs lodged by DSEU, following which the examination had to be cancelled three times. The integrity of the entire selection process was compromised and DSEU could not determine the extent to which the entire process was compromised and hence, had to resort to cancelling the entire examination process, in order to protect the sanctity of the recruitment process, the court said.