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Taniya Malik v. Registrar General of the High Court of Delhi

Writ Petition (Civil) · 2018 INSC 168Decided 16 Feb 2018
Writ Petition (Civil) No. 764 of 2017
Justice Arun Mishra · Justice Amitava Roy

Background

Several unsuccessful candidates in the Delhi Judicial Service 2015 Examination jointly challenged the examination process in a batch of writ petitions. Their complaints included that the 40% minimum qualifying mark in each paper (especially Criminal Law) was too strict, that marks should be "moderated" to correct examiner bias, that one petitioner's 49.9% aggregate should be rounded up to 50% to qualify for interview, and that another petitioner who scored 37% in the viva voce (short of the 45% minimum) should still be declared qualified since many advertised posts remained unfilled.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court held that "moderation" (adjusting marks to offset different examiners' relative strictness/leniency) is only necessary when multiple examiners grade the same paper; here, since a single examiner graded each paper, there was no inter-examiner variability to correct, so no moderation was warranted. Relying on its own precedent, the Court held that rounding off marks (e.g., 49.9% to 50%) to meet a statutory minimum eligibility threshold is impermissible, as rules fixing minimum marks must be applied strictly without dilution. The Court also upheld the 40% paper-wise cut-off as a reasonable means of ensuring baseline competence across all subjects, even where it meant a candidate with high overall marks could fail by missing one subject's minimum by a small margin, and found no fault with the examination or interview process. All the writ petitions were accordingly dismissed on merits.

Lesson Learnt

Minimum qualifying marks fixed by statutory examination rules must be met exactly: courts will not "round off" a near-miss score to help a candidate qualify, and claims of examiner bias only warrant correction ("moderation") where multiple examiners graded the same subject, not where a single examiner applied one consistent standard to everyone.

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

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