Ex-SC judge to re-evaluate Delhi magistrate exam answer papers

The Supreme Court on Monday said a former apex court judge could be appointed to re-evaluate the answer sheets of candidates who qualified the Delhi Judicial Services written exam 2014, following allegations of irregularities and nepotism.

A bench of justices Dipak Misra and Prafulla C Pant questioned advocate A D N Rao, representing the high court registrar general, why rationalisation of marks of the aspirants was not done.

Senior advocate Sanjay Hegde, appearing for an unsuccessful candidate, said that the person who got high marks in other question papers was allotted zero out of 40 marks in one paper.

Rao, on his part, said he would be required to verify the contention but pointed out that a set of answer-sheets was given to one evaluator to maintain uniformity. Advocate Prashant Bhushan, appearing for NGO CPIL, submitted that there was arbitrariness in the evaluation process and only 15 candidates were selected finally for about 80 seats.

The bench, however, said: “There is a concept of rationalisation of marks. We don’t know if that system was followed. Anyway, we are appointing a retired judge of this court, who is very strict, to re-evaluate the answer sheets. We want to ensure fairness now that complaints have cropped up.”

The PIL contended that of the 14 candidates who qualified in the Delhi Judicial Services exam 2014, two were daughters of the sitting HC judges and two other law researchers. The court had admitted the petition for consideration but refused to stay the selection process.

The petition in SC contended that an RTI response revealed that there was no “set criteria” in answer sheets checking and that no “model answers” were provided to the examiners.

It said at least 68 candidates, who appeared but failed to qualify the main examination for appointment of judicial magistrate, had already cleared judicial examination of other states like Uttar Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Odisha, Uttarakhand, Jharkhand and most of them were sitting judges in their respective states.