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Bihar Staff Selection Commission & Ors. v. Arun Kumar & Ors.

Civil Appeal · 2020 INSC 391Decided 6 May 2020
Civil Appeal arising out of SLP (Civil) Nos. 23202-23204 of 2015
Justice Rohinton Fali Nariman · Justice S. Ravindra Bhat

Background

The Bihar Staff Selection Commission (BSSC) conducted a large recruitment exam in 2010-2013 for over 3,000 government posts. After disputes arose over several allegedly incorrect exam questions, a single judge of the Patna High Court ordered the results revised by deleting four questions, leading to some candidates' selections being reversed. On further appeal, a Division Bench revised the answers to a different set of four questions and ordered accommodation of newly-qualifying candidates without disturbing existing appointments. Multiple sets of appellants, the BSSC, candidates who felt even more questions were wrongly evaluated, and others, all appealed to the Supreme Court, which (in an earlier order) had appointed its own four-member expert committee to independently determine the correct answers to ten disputed questions.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court held that courts have only a narrow power to interfere with examination evaluation, and should ordinarily defer to the examining body and academic experts rather than re-marking answers themselves, reiterating its earlier ruling in Ran Vijay Singh that repeated judicial interference in exam results creates prolonged uncertainty harming everyone involved, including the examination authorities, selected candidates, and the public interest in timely appointments. Finding that neither the single judge nor the Division Bench had relied on any expert panel in revising the earlier evaluations, while the Court's own four-member expert committee had now settled the correct answers after years of litigation, the Court accepted the expert committee's findings and set aside both the single judge's and Division Bench's judgments. It directed the BSSC to republish results based on the expert committee's answers, while protecting candidates already appointed under the earlier result and using its special constitutional powers (Article 142) to direct the State of Bihar to absorb any additional qualifying candidates against future vacancies rather than disturbing existing postings.

Lesson Learnt

Courts are reluctant to second-guess exam answer keys on their own judgment: if you dispute exam results, the stronger path is to press for an independent expert panel to review the disputed questions rather than expecting judges to substitute their own assessment for that of subject-matter experts.

Official source (sci.gov.in)View Judgment (PDF)

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