The Himachal Pradesh High Court has dismissed a petition filed by a Constable Candidate seeking a direction for reevaluation of a question after noting that the result was prepared based on the report submitted by the subject expert. The High Court affirmed the finding of the H.P. Public Service Commission and also found nothing that would suggest that the objection raised by the candidate was not considered.

The petitioner approached the High Court seeking a direction to the respondent to re-evaluate Question No.83 of the Screening Test held on June 15, 2025, by treating both options “A – Dhwani” and “D – Varn” as correct answers as per the books approved by the HP Board and NCERT.

The Single Bench of Justice Sandeep Sharma held, “Since in the case at hand, there is nothing on record to suggest/depict that objection raised by the petitioner was not considered or was not forwarded to the expert, and thereafter result was compiled/prepared on the basis of opinion/report submitted by the subject expert, no illegality or infirmity can be said to have been committed by the Commission while sticking to the answer approved by the subject expert.”

Advocate Jagat Pal represented the Petitioner, while Additional Advocate General Rajan Kahol represented the Respondent.

Factual Background

The petitioner, in terms of an advertisement dated October 3, 2024, issued by the respondent-H.P. Public Service Commission for 708 posts of Constable (Male) and 380 posts of Constable (Female), Class-III, in Himachal Pradesh Police Department, applied for the post of Constable (Male). The petitioner claimed that he had been wrongly not awarded one mark for having attempted the said question.

Reasoning

The Bench reaffirmed that the wisdom of the subject expert cannot be challenged and the same needs to be respected, otherwise the selection process would never be concluded.

Relying upon the judgments in Ran Vijay Singh and Ors v. State of Uttar Pradesh and Ors, 2018 and Bihar Staff Selection Commission and Others v. Arun Kumar and Others (2020), the Bench took note of the fact that the Apex Court has categorically ordered that the Court should not at all reevaluate or scrutinise the answer sheets of a candidate. The Bench further noticed that the Apex Court also held that the Court should presume the correctness of the answer key and proceed on that assumption, and in the event of a doubt, benefit should certainly go to the subject expert, rather than to the candidate.

Thus, upholding the decision of the Commission to stick to the answer approved by the subject expert, the Bench dismissed the Petition.

Cause Title: Veeku v. State of H.P. and Others (Neutral Citation: 2025:HHC:39460)

Appearance

Petitioner: Advocates Jagat Pal, Parul

Respondent: Additional Advocate General Rajan Kahol, Advocate Vikrant Thakur,

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Himachal Pradesh High CourtJustice Sandeep Sharma

Tulip Kanth

Assistant Editor

Tulip Kanth is an Assistant Editor at Verdictum having over 5 years of experience in the field of legal journalism and editing. She extensively covers judgments of the Supreme Court, High Courts as well as Tribunals. She has previously worked with a legal publishing website where she oversaw the work of other editors and has also created updates on notifications of different Government Ministries. She holds an English Honours Degree from SGTB Khalsa College, Delhi University and has completed her LLB course with specialisation in Corporate Law from Amity University.