Supreme Court refuses to entertain plea for re-evaluation of marks in Punjab Judicial Services Mains Exam

The Supreme Court on Tuesday refused to entertain a petition preferred by candidates seeking re-evaluation of mains written examination of the Punjab and Haryana Superior Judicial Service examination for the year 2023-2024 [Anjali Khosla and Another v. Honourable High Court of Punjab and Haryana at Chandigarh]..A bench of Justices PS Narasimha and Sanjay Karol questioned the maintainability of the petition under Article 32 of the Constitution when the petitioners already had the remedy to approach the Punjab & Haryana High Court under Article 226."Why Article 32 petition? Does High Court has no power to order re-evaluation? You cannot go into Article 226?" the Court asked Advocate Dayaar Singla appearing for the petitioners."High Court has no power. This court has only held this," Advocate Singla responded."That is wrong. We are not agreeing with that. We cannot interfere under Article 32. You go before High Court. We are dismissing it. You have not been able to satisfy us regarding maintainability," Justice Narasimha said.Advocate Singla then argued that in the absence of any specific provision for re-evaluation under the Punjab and Haryana Superior Judicial Service Rules of 2007, the High Court cannot order re-evaluation under Article 226.He persuaded the Supreme Court to then briefly hear the case."Now you are wasting your time. Go take a Shatabdi and go to High Court of Punjab and Haryana. We have given you liberty. Dismissed," Justice Karol then remarked.The Court, therefore, proceeded to dismiss the petition, with liberty to seek alternate remedies before the High Court..The petitioners sought re-evaluation of marks in the Punjab and Haryana Superior Judicial Services-Mains Written Examination for the year 2024 the results of which were declared on May 2.They argued that the evaluation was prima facie unreasonable as despite there being 46 vacancies, for which 138 candidates ought to have been called for interviews, merely 10 candidates had been qualified for the interview stage.The plea placed reliance on the decisions of the top court in Pranav Verma v. Registrar General, High Court of Punjab and Haryana (2019) and Tanya Malik v. Registrar General, High Court of Delhi (2018)..[Read Live Coverage].The petition before the apex court was filed through Advocate Siddhartha Jha.[Read order]