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Synopsis

The Uttar Pradesh Public Service Commission (UPPSC) has recently admitted before the Allahabad High Court that there was an error in the preparation of the merit list of the written examination concerning 50 candidates of the U.P. Judicial Service Civil Judge (Junior Division) Examination- 2022.

Deputy Secretary at UPPSC Sunil Kumar filed an affidavit before the court in compliance of court's order. An inquiry report of the Committee constituted by the UPPSC to examine the discrepancies in the exam was also filed. 

The division bench of Justices Saumitra Dayal Singh and Anish Kumar Gupta prused the reports and found that according to the UPPSC, the checklist of Master Fake Code pasted on two bundles of the answer books for the paper English got interchanged such that in the preparation of the merit list of the written examination the marks of one set of 25 candidates got interchanged with the marks of another set of 25 candidates.

On this, the court noted that though the Commission had owned the mistake, the compliance affidavit did not indicate to any extent the consequent change in the merit list of the written examination caused by such mistake.

Furthermore, court noted that as a possibility, the UPPSC had admitted that the correction of that error would involve the exclusion of certain selected candidates and the inclusion of other candidates, and consequently, those who have been wrongly excluded may be required to be interviewed and a fresh merit list would be needed to be prepared.

Court also took on record the Commission's submissions that it has invited all 3019 candidates to peruse their answer books for any other discrepancy in the evaluation made by it and that the final corrected result would be prepared by August 30, 2024. 

Court although expressed satisfaction with the UPPSC's take on the issue, however, it was not happy with the timeline that were indicated by the Commission. 

"We are mindful that the result was declared in August, 2023. Selected candidates have joined and are undergoing training at various stages. The candidates having being selected for judicial office, the matter cannot be dealt with in a light hearted manner as may allow the UPPSC inordinately long time to make the necessary correction," the division bench said. 

Therefore, court directed the Chairman, UPPSC to file a personal affidavit by July 6 clearly indicating therein:

(i) The change of marks that have to be corrected in view of the error noted in the inquiry report dated 22.06.2024;

(ii) Consequently, the affidavit would also disclose the full details of candidates who were ineligible to be called for interview, once the correction is made, together with the marks originally awarded and the corrected marks;

(iii) The affidavit would also disclose full details of the candidates together with the marks originally awarded andweri the corrected marks who ought to have been called for interview.

(iv) The affidavit would also disclose with the exact details if any other mistake was noted with respect to any /all answer books (paperwise of all six papers of UP PCS - J Examination 2022) in which Master Fake Code may have been interchanged or any other error of like nature occurred with respect thereto.

Court posted the matter for further hearing on July 8, 2024. 

The order was passed in a writ petition filed by one Shravan Pandey who moved the court after the UPPSC refused to show him his answer sheet of the UPPCS-2022 mains examination. 

Pandey raised concerns that his English answer sheet was tampered with, showing different handwriting and that several pages from another answer sheet were missing, leading to his failure in the examination.

On June 5, 2024, court directed the Commission to submit Pandey's answer sheets for six exams for judicial review. The court will review those as well on the next date.

Case Title: Shravan Pandey v. State of UP and Others