"Manipulation": Orissa High Court Directs To Hold Interview For District Judge Aspirant After Noting Overwriting In Different Ink In Answer Sheet
The Court directed administrative steps to conduct her interview for the post of District Judge.
The Orissa High Court has held that a District Judge aspirant was wrongly deprived of an interview after her answer sheet showed apparent manipulation, with marks overwritten in a different ink. Finding that the record "clearly indicates manipulation", the Court directed the authorities to take necessary administrative steps to conduct her interview for the District Judge recruitment, after restoring the marks originally awarded to her.
Expanding on this finding, the High Court established that the petitioner had obtained 45 marks in her General English paper rather than the manipulated score of 42. Since the candidate fulfilled the individual paper cutoff as well as the 50 percent aggregate requirement across all three papers, the Court ruled that she could not be excluded from the selection process due to subsequent ink alterations and tabulation errors.
A Division Bench comprising Justice Manash Ranjan Pathak and Justice Sibo Sankar Mishra in a writ petition filed under Article 226 of the Constitution of India challenging the petitioner's disqualification, “…As we have now on the basis of the report and opinion dated 25.08.2025 of the Orissa Police State FSL, we have determined that the petitioner obtained 45 marks in her Paper-III and not 42 marks. The above clearly indicates that the petitioner was deprived to appear in the interview for the posts in the Cadre of District Judge 2023 by way of manipulation. As such, the petitioner now qualified in the in the interview for the posts in the Cadre of District Judge from the Bar 2023”.
Advocate Saswati Mohapatra appeared for the petitioner and Senior Advocate Bigyan Kumar Sharma appeared for the respondent.
The petitioner, Geetanjali Majhi, had applied for direct recruitment from the Bar to fill 23 posts in the cadre of District Judge pursuant to Advertisement No. 05 of 2023 issued by the High Court Registry. After appearing for the written examination on November 5, 2023, the published results indicated that she scored 65 marks in Paper-I, 52 marks in Paper-II, and 42 marks in Paper-III (General English), making her ineligible for the interview due to falling short of the 45 percent minimum in Paper-III.
Upon obtaining her evaluated answer script via an application under the Right to Information Act, the petitioner noticed discrepancies in the computation of her Paper-III marks. She subsequently approached the High Court seeking correction of her tabulated score from 42 to 45 and permission to appear for the interview, as her total aggregate score met the mandatory 50 percent threshold.
During the proceedings, a coordinate bench ordered a forensic examination of the original answer script by the State Forensic Science Laboratory, Odisha. The resulting forensic report revealed that the figures of the marks obtained by the petitioner in Paper-III had been subsequently altered through overwriting in different ink accompanied by a short signature. The High Court analyzed the forensic report alongside the admissions in the Registry’s additional affidavit, which conceded that the marks awarded against individual answers totaled 45. The Court concluded that the individual scores marked by the evaluator must prevail over the manipulated tabulation sheet, confirming that the petitioner had secured 45 marks in Paper-III and was wrongly excluded from the interview phase.
Allowing the writ petition, the High Court directed the Registrar General to place the matter before the Chief Justice on the administrative side for the constitution of a Judicial Committee to conduct the petitioner's interview for the District Judge Cadre (Bar) 2023 within two weeks.
Cause Title: Geetanjali Majhi v. The Registrar General, Orissa High Court, Cuttack & Anr. (W.P.(C). No. 4698 of 2024)
Appearances:
Petitioner: Saswati Mohapatra, Advocate.
Respondent: Bigyan Kumar Sharma, Senior Advocate, Dipti Ranjan Bhokta, Advocate.