Re-evaluation of Answer Sheets : Supreme Court Explains the Law

Re-evaluation of Answer Sheets : Supreme Court Explains the Law

An important Judgment has been passed by Hon'ble Supreme Court on 11 December 2017. 

It has been commented in Ran Vijay Singh v State of UP [2017] GCtR 2020 (SC) thus : - 

"The law on the subject is therefore, quite clear and we only propose to highlight a few significant conclusions. They are: 

If a statute, Rule or Regulation governing an examination permits the re-evaluation of an answer sheet or scrutiny of an answer sheet as a matter of right, then the authority conducting the examination may permit it; 

If a statute, Rule or Regulation governing an examination does not permit re-evaluation or scrutiny of an answer sheet (as distinct from prohibiting it) then the court may permit re-evaluation or scrutiny only if it is demonstrated very clearly, without any “inferential process of reasoning or by a process of rationalisation” and only in rare or exceptional cases that a material error has been committed; 

The court should not at all re-evaluate or scrutinise the answer sheets of a candidate—it has no expertise in the matter and academic matters are best left to academics; 

The court should presume the correctness of the key answers and proceed on that assumption; and 

In the event of a doubt, the benefit should go to the examination authority rather than to the candidate."

Full text (PDF) Copy of Judgment is available free of cost from the link www.sci.gov.in.

Written by 

Vishal

Delhi

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