Delhi High Court orders re-computation of Delhi Judicial Service Prelims, 2019 result

The Delhi High Court directed the Registrar General to re- recompute and publish the updated result of the Delhi Judicial Service (Preliminary Examination), 2019, which was declared on September 26, 2019, by October 4..The order was passed by a Division Bench of Justice S Muralidhar and Talwant Singh in a batch of petitions by several candidates who were unsuccessful in the Preliminary Examination..As per the Court’s direction, after the re-evaluation, the candidates who are successful shall be informed about the result via phone and e-mail..The Court has clarified that the date of the Mains Examination ie. October 12-13, 2019, as well as the results of the 353 candidates already declared successful, will remain unchanged..The petitioners had moved the High Court alleging that the Result of the Prelims exam for Delhi Judicial Service which was declared on September 26 was based on several incorrect answers in the Answer Key. As per the petitions, there were at least 15 incorrect answers..One of the petitioners, Nishant Basoya argued that the High Court ‘s move to not even invite objections to the Result and to immediately proceed to schedule the Mains Examination for Delhi Judicial Service on October 12-13, 2019 after declaring the cut-off was shocking..He had thus asserted that the act of the High Court was palpably arbitrary and opaque and violative of Article 14 of the Constitution of India..To arrive at the conclusion, the Court analyzed the law pertaining to the issues at hand..All the objections raised in the petition by Basoya against Question Numbers 171, 6 and 163 (Booklet Series C ), which pertained to Order VII Rule 11 (d) CPC, Contract for sale of a car and a compromise decree, respectively, were allowed..While dealing with other petitions, the objections to Question Nos 122, 81, 86 (Booklet Series A), which pertained to guarantee, res judicata and Order VI Rule 17 CPC, respectively, were also allowed..Additionally, a change to the answers to Question numbers 59, 112 in (Booklet Series D) on Order XXXIX Rule 3 CPC, Basic Structure of the Constitution, respectively along with Question Number 48 (Booklet Series C) on Section 125 of CrPC was also upheld..The Court, however, upheld the Answer Key with respect to Question Numbers 96, 16 (Booklet Series A) on the jurisdiction in trademark infringement and arrears of maintenance, respectively, as well as Question Numbers 172 (Booklet Series C) and 150, 190 on interim relief under Order XXXIX, jurisdiction in a contractual dispute and jurisdiction under Section 34 of Arbitration and Conciliation Act, respectively..The challenge to Question Number 149 (Series C) which pertained to counterclaim was withdrawn..The Court thus summarized,.“To summarize the judgment of this Court, out of the challenge to the answer keys for 15 questions, the Court upholds the challenge to answer keys to the questions at I, II, III, V, VII, VIII, IX, X and XIII above i.e. nine questions. The Court notices at this stage that there is a negative 0.25 mark for each wrong answer and, therefore, the prejudice to the Petitioners in respect of the above 9 questions would be substantial.”.The Court, therefore, ordered re-computation of the results in accordance with the applicable rules and the preparation of an additonal list of successful candidates..“..the High Court will in respect of the remaining candidates, which would include the present Petitioners, proceed to apply the correct answer keys as decided by this Court and recompute the results in accordance with the applicable rules. By treating the marks obtained by the last of the 353 eligible candidates in the first list as the cut off marks, a further list of candidates found eligible to sit for the Mains exam will be prepared and published on the website of the Delhi High Court not later than 6 pm on 4th October 2019.”.Nishant Basoya was represented by Advocates Nivesh Sharma, Sagar Shivam, Kirti Gupta and Ritu Singh..Other Petitioners were represented by Advocates Prashant Manchanda, Mohit Saroha, Mohit Siwach, Rakshit Pandey, Sachin Mittal, Gaurav Tanwar, Shreya Jain and Sonal Chauhan..High Court was represented by Advocates Rajshekhar Rao, Ankit Jain, Chaitanya Puri, Siddhant Nath, Abhay Pratap Singh, Areeb Y Amanullah, Siddharth Raval and Rajshree Jaiswal..[Read Order]