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On Supreme Court roster, contentious questions on glaciers, iron ore and a government scheme

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UP state civil service aspirants challenge answer key in preliminary exam; apex court reserves verdict, says can only step in when answers are ‘obnoxiously wrong’.

New Delhi: The Supreme Court Tuesday was called on to deliberate on three contentious questions — none of which had to do with Constitutional propriety or the rule of law. Instead a two-judge bench was asked to evaluate if the Uttar Pradesh Public Service Commission (UPPSC) had rightly interpreted two questions on geography and one on government policy.

The three questions — together for 4-5 marks — were part of the preliminary examination for the UP state civil services that was conducted in September 2017. The final exam is scheduled for 18 June. The questions include:

The three contentious questions in UP state civil services preliminary examination | Siddhant Gupta

When the UP commission published the answer key to the questions in January this year, it contended that option (d) was the right answer for the first question. It also set option (d) — Siachen — as the answer for the question on the largest glacier and option(c) — Durgapur — as the right answer for the last question.

The aspirants on the other hand contend that Sasaini (option a) is the largest glacier among those mentioned, and that Salem (option d) is the farthest from a raw material area. As for the first question, the students say option (c) is the right answer.

Legal challenge

The three queries were among 14 contentious questions that some of the candidates flagged and approached the Allahabad High Court. They challenged the questions on the grounds that they were incorrect, vague or confusing, or that some of them had two correct answers.

The high court, while finding it unnecessary to call for re-examinations, directed the UP commission to re-evaluate the question paper, initially set by a 16-member expert committee.

Accordingly, a 26-member expert committee re-evaluated the 14 questions; it subsequently deleted five questions in its findings. The high court went with the committee’s findings in its verdict on 2 April.

The UP commission, while accepting the findings on 11 of the questions, challenged the HC’s ruling on the three above mentioned questions. In the three questions, the high court ruled that Sasaini was in fact the largest glacier, ruled that free books and nutrition were both not provided under the ICDS scheme and directed the commission to delete the question on iron ore.

Apex court reserves verdict

A Supreme Court bench of Justices U.U. Lalit and Deepak Gupta, reserved their verdict in the case Tuesday, while observing that the court could only step in when the answers to questions were “obnoxiously wrong.”

“When one asks how many official languages are there in India, the answer is simple. All one needs to do is pick up the relevant schedule (of the Constitution) and you will get your answer,” Justice Lalit said. Here, he observed, there is no ambiguity to the questions or the answers.

The counsel for the candidates then suggested that despite the fact that the answer key was prepared by a committee of 16 experts, there was a possibility for error. “By the same logic, judges can also be wrong,” the judge was quick to quip in a lighter vein.

“Judicial review of answers cannot be employed to anything that requires the process of reasoning,” Justice Lalit said. The bench further pointed out that questioning the decisions were outside its purview, and all it could do was question the decision-making process.

While reserving its judgment on this issue, the top court was quick to clarify that the answer key published by the committee of 26 experts was in order and that by deleting five questions from the paper, it was diligent in its process of evaluation. “The court’s attitude in such cases should be to adopt a more hands-off approach, rather than a hands-on one,” Justice Lalit said.

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