Courts Must Not Venture To Sit On Appeal Over Decisions Taken By Experts: Delhi HC
The Delhi High Court observed that the Courts must not venture to sit on appeal on the decisions taken by experts unless the selection done by the expert body is biased,capricious, whimsical or arbitrary.
The court was considering a plea against the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team i.e., CERT-IN’s empanelment procedure. A writ petition was filed by a Cyber Security Organization seeking to quash the results issued by the CERT-IN regarding the Online Practical Skill Test.
A Single Bench of Justice Subramonium Prasad observed, “This Court after perusing the engagement guidelines for empanelment is of the view that there is no procedure envisaged under the Rules of Engagement 2020 and 2021 for re-evaluation of reports submitted by the Petitioner pursuant to either the Offline In-House Practical Skill Test and the Online Practical Skill Test. … A perusal of the material on record discloses that the process of empanelment adopted by the Respondents is extremely technical. The Court cannot be expected to sit on appeal over decisions taken by experts and substitute its own conclusion with one arrived at by the experts.”
Advocate Tarang Gupta represented the petitioner while CGSC Vikram Jetly and Law Officer Rajesh Suri represented the respondents.
Brief Facts -
An Online Practical Skill Test was held as part of the renewal process for empanelment of Cyber-Security Firms as Information Technology Security Auditing Organizations where the CERT-IN awarded the score of 65% to the petitioner in the Online Practical Skill Test conducted in September, 2020 and 70% in the Online Practical Skill Test conducted in January, 2021 as part of the empanelment process, and put an embargo on the petitioner from being empanelled with the respondent for a period of one year.
The petitioner had participated in the aforesaid test on two occasions and failed to qualify for either of the tests. It was aggrieved by the results of the Online Practical Skill Test and hence, approached the High Court seeking the quashing of the results of petitioner in both of the tests and directing the respondents to re-evaluate the results.
The High Court in view of the above facts noted, “…there was no infirmity with the decision of the Respondent No.1 in not allowing a reevaluation of the report submitted by the Petitioner on 22.09.2020 given the procedure to provide two attempts to qualify in the Online Practical Skill Test. Further, allowing the re-evaluation of the Petitioner in absence of a procedure and norms of the CERT-IN will lead to unnecessary administrative delays, as the same had not been done for any participating organization since the inception of the empanelment procedure by CERT-IN.”
The Court said that by withholding the Master List, the respondent is ensuring that the sanctity of the IT Operations of important ministries and the other public authorities is not interfered with.
“As established, the Master List prepared by the Respondents herein is a list of vulnerabilities which forms the scope of the tests laid down under the Guidelines for Empanelment of IT Organizations for IT Audit of Governmental Organizations, and is therefore an important document, not only for the purposes of the test, but also for the integrity of the IT Systems of the concerned organizations”, added the Court.
Furthermore, the Court observed that the disclosure of Master List to the petitioner will have an adverse effect not only for the security of the governmental organizations in questions but also on the entire empanelment procedure.
“A perusal of the material on record does not disclose any favouritism. In fact, there is no allegation of favouritism. Material on record also does not disclose that there was any bias against the Petitioner. The empanelment is for a highly technical subject and the evaluation is being done by persons who are experts in that specialized subject. There is nothing on record to show that the marks have not been given on the basis of an objective criteria unless it is shown that the selection done by the expert body is biased, capricious, whimsical or arbitrary, Courts must not venture to sit on appeal on the decisions taken by experts”, concluded the Court.
Accordingly, the High Court dismissed the writ petition.
Cause Title- Trusted Info Systems Private Limited v. Indian Computer Emergency Response Team & Anr. (Neutral Citation: 2023:DHC:8336)
