Courts should not be moved by compassion or empathy for students while deciding pleas for re-evaluation of answer sheets, the Supreme Court held on Friday.
“Sympathy or compassion does not play any role in the matter of directing or not directing re-evaluation of an answer sheet. If an error is committed by the examination authority, the complete body of candidates suffers. The entire examination process does not deserve to be derailed only because some candidates are disappointed or dissatisfied or perceive some injustice having been caused to them by an erroneous question or an erroneous answer. All candidates suffer equally, though some might suffer more,” a Bench of Justices Madan B. Lokur and Deepak Gupta observed in their judgment.
The Bench condemned the increasing interference of courts in the results of examinations. Some judges even ventured to find out for themselves whether a question or answer in an examination was correct or not.
“Interference by courts in the results of examinations places the examination authorities in an unenviable position where they are under scrutiny, and not the candidates. Additionally, a massive and sometimes prolonged examination exercise concludes with an air of uncertainty,” Justice Lokur wrote in the judgment.
Academic matters should be best left to academics and not judges, the Supreme Court observed.
The court laid down five guidelines for courts to order or not order re-evaluation of answer sheets.
One, re-evaluation can be permitted if the statute, rule or regulation governing the examination permits it. Two, in case the law controlling the examination does not permit re-evaluation of answer sheets, it can be done only if it demonstrates very clearly in rare or exceptional cases when it is found that a material error has been committed.
Three, courts shall not re-evaluate or scrutinise the answer sheets of a candidate on their own, but leave it to the academic experts in the field. Four, court shall presume the correctness of the key answers and proceed on that assumption; and five, in the event of a doubt, the benefit should go to the examination authority rather than to the candidate.
The judgment, which began with the phrase “what a mess!” is based on the eight-year delay caused by multiple re-evaluations of answer sheets of 36,000 candidates who attended an examination conducted by the U.P. Secondary Education Services Selection Board for recruitment of trained graduate teachers.