Court No. - 3
Case :- WRIT - A No. - 6957 of 2021 Petitioner :- Chandra Mohan Nigam Respondent :- State Of U.P. And 3 Others Counsel for Petitioner :- Satya Prakash Mishra,Shatrughan Jee Pandey Counsel for Respondent :- C.S.C.
Hon'ble Surya Prakash Kesarwani,J.
Heard Sri Satya Prakash Mishra, learned counsel for the petitioner, Sri Sharat Chandra Upadhyay, brief holder of the learned counsel for the State-respondents.
Learned counsel for the petitioner submits that the controversy involved in the present writ petition is squarely covered by judgment dated 25.08.2021 in Special Appeal Defective No.343 of 2021 (Abhishek Srivastava and 14 others vs. State of U.P. and others) and other connected special appeals.
On 28.09.2021, this court passed the following order:
"Learned Standing Counsel shall obtain instructions from the second and third respondents in light of the submission addressed on behalf of the petitioner that in view of the directions issued by the Division Bench in Special Appeal Defective No.343 of 2021, the petitioner would be entitled to one additional mark and thus entitled to be appointed.
Include in the list of fresh cases of 21 October 2021."
Operative portion of the judgment in the case of Abhishek Srivastava and 14 others (supra) is reproduced below:
"As an outcome of the discussion aforesaid, we find reason to cause interference in the judgement of the learned Single Judge limited to Question No. 60 and not for in any other questions for which objections have been raised by the appellants.
It is stated that selections have already been finalized followed by appointments but merely for that reason, the candidates having a case in their favour cannot be deprived to get benefit. Keeping in mind that selections have already been completed followed by appointments, direction in these appeals would apply only to those candidates who have raised the issue by maintaining a writ by now and not to any other candidate. The benefit to the candidates therein also would be if they are short of one mark because the value of each question is of one mark.
The matter is not referred to the expert for its examination finding that answer to Question No.60 was not correctly selected. The issue could not even be contested by the respondents thus to avoid further delay in the matter, we direct the respondents to take a decision appropriately to award one mark to the litigants till date.
To avoid any complication, the non-appellants can give value of one mark to the litigants for Question No.60 which otherwise can be with deletion to increase the value of all the questions proportionately but then it may open a Pandora and this Court do not intend to disturb the appointments already made thus direction is kept limited to the writ petitioners. If with award of one mark to any of the litigants till date before Allahabad High Court, they find place in the merit, then the respondents would give them appointment, subject to satisfaction of other conditions, if any.
The exercise aforesaid would not effect in any manner the selection or appointments already made. The benefit would be given to the appellants and the writ petitioners, if they are short of one mark and not otherwise. If any of the litigant till date are short by two marks in the merit, they would not be entitled to any benefit of this judgment.
With the aforesaid direction, all the appeals are disposed of after causing interference in the impugned judgment limited to Question No. 60."
In paragraph-7 of the supplementary affidavit, the petitioner has stated as under:
"7. That it is also relevant point here that in pursuance of order passed by this Hon'ble Court, if the petitioner award one mark then its merit goes upon 66.72% and the last selected candidate by the examination regulatory authority / commission is less than the petitioner's merit i.e. for Goarkhpur district 66.56%, Badaun - 66.50% and Siddharth Nagar - 66.55% etc. For the kind perusal of this Hon'ble Court a true photo copy of the extract copy of the Newspaper dated 13.08.2021, Dainik Jagaran is being filed herewith and marked as Annexure Nos. S.A.(5)to this affidavit."
The judgment by the Division Bench in the aforesaid Special Appeal Defective No.343 of 2021 was passed on 25.08.2021 whereas the petitioner herein had filed the present writ petition on 28.06.2021. Thus, the writ petition was filed much prior to the aforesaid Division Bench judgment in the case of Abhishek Srivastava and 14 others (supra). Therefore, the petitioner shall be entitled to the benefit of the judgment in the case of Abhishek Srivastava and 14 others (supra) provided the contention of the petitioner that Question No.143 of Booklet Series-D is the Question No.60 of Booklet Series-A, which was under consideration in the case of Abhishek Srivastava and 14 others (supra), is found correct by the respondent No.4.
In view of the aforesaid, this writ petition is disposed off in terms of the judgment in the case of Abhishek Srivastava and 14 others (supra) and the benefit of that judgment shall be available to the petitioner herein provided the Question No.143 of the Booklet Series-D is the same as the Question No.60 of Booklet Series-A. The respondent No.4 shall examine this aspect of the matter within two weeks from the date of presentation of a certified copy of this order before him and if the contention of the petitioner is found correct, then the benefit of the judgment in the case of Abhishek Srivastava and 14 others (supra), shall be extended to him also.
Order Date :- 24.12.2021 NLY