PATNA, India, Oct. 8 -- Patna High Court issued the following judgment on Sept. 8:

Heard the parties.

2. The challenge in the present writ petition is made to the Important Notice dated 12.12.2023 issued under the signature of the Additional Secretary-cum-Examination Controller (T.R.E.), Bihar Public Service Commission (hereinafter referred to as 'Commission'), whereby the objection filed by the petitioner has been rejected in a mechanical manner.

3. Without delving into the merit of the case, in pursuant to the order of this Court, a supplementary counter affidavit has been filed. A fair stand has been taken by the Commission and it has been apprised to this Court that the recruitment of teacher for Class 9 and 10, subject Social Science, TRE I consist of 03 parts. Part I, General Studies, question no. 01 to 40, Part-II & III- Social-science, question no 41 to 120. The Petitioner has opted History subject for question no. 41 to 80 (Part-II) and Political Science subject for question no. 81 to 120 (part-III). The final answer key of question no. 115 (political science) was published as option C but due to a manual error, the OMR scanning company had fed the answer as D for question no. 115. Due to this error the petitioned had obtained 71 marks in Social science paper. It has been submitted that if it is not for the manual error, the petitioner would have gotten 01 marks for question no. 115 of political science, as he has circled the right answer.

4. It is not in dispute that the cut off marks under BC category was fixed as 72 marks and after making correction in the OMR sheet, if the same would have been added, the petitioner shall also be entitled to have 72 marks, which is the last cut off marks under the BC category.

5. Mr. Jagjit Roshan, learned Advocate for the petitioner referring to the stand of the Commission has submitted that the identically situated persons, who have qualified and secured the cut off marks under BC category for the post of Assistant Teacher in terms of Advertisement No. 26/23, have already been selected and appointed against their respective posts long back in the year 2023; however, the petitioner has been deprived because of his no mistake and, as such, in all circumstances he should be also accorded all the benefits as has been extended to other identically situated persons as for the fault of OMR scanning company or the Commission, the petitioner cannot be blamed. To bolster up the aforesaid submission, reliance has also been placed on a TwoJudges decision of the Apex Court in State of Maharashtra vs. Jagannath Achyut Karandikar [1989 Supp (1) SCC 393], the relevant being at paragraph no. 10 thereof. Further reliance has been placed on a Bench decision of this Court in Ganpati Singh vs. The State of Bihar & Ors. [2011(4) PLJR 766], the relevant being at paragraph nos. 5 and 6.

6. Ms. Parul Parasad, learned Advocate for the Commission fairly submitted that a bonafide stand has been taken by the Commission and after proper enquiry it has been found that on account of mistake carried out by the OMR Scanning Company, the petitioner has been deprived from one mark. Had the petitioner been given one mark he would have certainly been qualified after getting cut off marks.

The rest of the document can be viewed at https://patnahighcourt.gov.in/viewjudgment/MTUjNjM5IzIwMjQjMSNO-8VTXv8lWmqw=

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