Judgment Intelligence
Petition Dismissed- Court
- Rajasthan High Court
- Date of Decision
- 10 July 2024
- Bench
- Chief Justice Manindra Mohan Shrivastava and Justice Shubha Mehta
- Relevant Acts & Sections
- Constitution of India — Article 226
Both appeals, D.B. Special Appeal (Writ) Nos. 986/2022 and 782/2022, were dismissed by a common judgment, leaving the Single Judges' orders and the revised key (‘Gagron’) for question 135 undisturbed; pending applications were also dismissed (paras 38-39).
Key holdings
- Without a rule permitting it, re-evaluation is not allowed; a demonstrably wrong key is the exception (paras 16, 26).
- Disputed keys go to an Expert Committee: a wrong key means reassessment; a vague or multiple-answer question is deleted (para 26).
- A writ court will not act as an expert where texts relied on by both sides point different ways (paras 34-35).
- A disputed historical fact is a matter for subject experts, not the court (para 35).
- In a case of doubt, the benefit goes to the examination authority rather than the candidate (paras 36-37).
Case explainer by NyayVidhan: an account of this judgment and the law it laid down, not the court's text. The judgment itself is the authoritative version.
Brief Facts
Court's Findings
Legal Principle
Precedents Relied Upon
- Himachal Pradesh Public Service Commission v. Mukesh Thakur & Another (2010) 6 SCC 759
In the absence of any provision under the statute or statutory rules/regulations, the court should not generally direct revaluation of answer books.
- High Court of Tripura through the Registrar General v. Tirtha Sarathi Mukherjee & Others (2019) 16 SCC 663
There is no legal right to revaluation without a provision for it, but in rare and exceptional cases, where a correct answer is beyond doubt yet treated as wrong, the writ court may still intervene.
- Manish Ujwal & Others v. Maharishi Dayanand Saraswati University & Others (2005) 13 SCC 744
Where experts unanimously found key answers demonstrably wrong, fresh evaluation with the correct keys was directed; students cannot suffer for the examining body's fault.
View all precedents (7)
- Guru Nanak Dev University v. Saumil Garg and Others (2005) 13 SCC 749
Noted among the decisions relied on in Richal: the university was directed to revaluate answers to eight questions with reference to key answers provided by CBSE.
- Rajesh Kumar & Others v. State of Bihar & Others (2013) 4 SCC 690
Noted among the decisions relied on in Richal: where the answer key was defective, the logical course was to correct the key and re-evaluate the scripts, not to hold a fresh examination.
- Bihar Staff Selection Commission and Others v. Arun Kumar and Others (2020) 6 SCC 362
Cited as a recent decision reiterating the settled principles on judicial review of answer keys.
- Vikesh Kumar Gupta and Another v. State of Rajasthan and Others (2021) 2 SCC 309
A court may not examine the correctness of questions and the answer key to reach a conclusion different from that of the expert committee.
