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The Arunachal Pradesh Public Service Commission (APPSC) vs Miss Hage Mamung

Civil Appeal · 2023 INSC 59Decided 20 Jan 2023
Civil Appeal No. 350 of 2023
M.R. Shah · C.T. Ravikumar

Background

The Commission advertised 22 posts of Agriculture Development Officer. After the written test and interview, the writ petitioner (Hage Mamung) missed the final list; through an RTI application she learned she had scored 268.45 marks against 268.75 for the candidate at serial 21. The answer keys for two objective questions (Nos. 12 and 31) had been found to be wrong, so the Commission cancelled both questions and awarded every candidate marks for them on a pro-rata basis. The petitioner argued she had answered both correctly while the other candidate had answered only one correctly, so awarding both of them two marks was unfair. A Single Judge of the Gauhati High Court dismissed her petition, but the Division Bench ordered re-evaluation of the two candidates' papers.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court allowed the Commission's appeal and restored the Single Judge's order. It held that the Commission had taken a conscious, uniform decision to cancel the two defective questions and give all candidates pro-rata marks, so that nobody was penalised for the examiners' mistake; since everyone received the same increase, the merit ranking was unaffected. Clause 38(v) of the Commission's 2017 Guidelines allows deletion of wrong questions and pro-rata distribution of their marks, and the same logic reasonably applies to wrong answer keys. There is no provision for re-evaluation, and the High Court committed a serious error in ordering re-evaluation for only two candidates against a uniform policy applied to all.

Lesson Learnt

When an exam authority cancels defective questions and applies the same pro-rata formula to every candidate, courts will generally not interfere or order selective re-evaluation, even if an individual candidate would have done better under a different method. Uniform treatment of all candidates, not individual re-marking, is the standard.

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

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