Courts Must Be Circumspect In Entertaining Individual Grievance Over Public Examinations As It Prejudices Larger Public Interest: SC
The Supreme Court observed that Courts must be circumspect in entertaining an individual grievance relating to a Public Examination as it delays the finalisation of the result, thereby, seriously prejudicing the larger public interest.
The Court dismissed a Special Leave Petition (SLP) filed by a student (petitioner) seeking re-examination of the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET-UG) 2024 on the grounds of “inconvenience” caused due to the petitioner's medical condition of hyperhidrosis during the examination.
A Bench of Chief Justice D.Y. Chandrachud, Justice J.B. Pardiwala and Justice Manoj Misra observed, “Courts must be circumspect in entertaining an individual grievance relating to a Public Examination as it delays finalization of result thereby seriously prejudicing larger public interest.”
The petitioner appeared in person, while Advocate Pankhuri Srivastava appeared for the respondents.
A Special Leave Petition (SLP) was filed seeking leave to appeal against the decision of the Telangana High Court, whereby the writ petition of the petitioner was dismissed. The High Court dismissed the petitioner’s petition seeking direction to the National Testing Agency (NTA) to conduct a re-examination of NEET(UG)-2024 for the petitioner, as it did for other candidates.
The High Court had dismissed the petition upon finding that the full allotted time for giving the examination was provided to all the candidates including the petitioner at the relevant examination center; therefore, the case of the petitioner was not at par with the other 1563 candidates for whom a fresh examination was conducted. The High Court observed that even if it is assumed that the petitioner was wrongly denied permission to carry a handkerchief, the same would not have materially affected his performance in the examination as sweat on palms could easily be wiped off on the clothes worn by a person.
The Supreme Court noted the petitioner’s submission on the negligence of the security personnel manning the examination center for not allowing the petitioner to carry a handkerchief inside the examination hall even though it was not a prohibited item.
The petitioner had argued that had he been provided the benefit of a handkerchief, his performance would have been a lot better thereby improving his chances for admission in a college of his choice.
“There is no case that allotted time for giving the examination was not provided to the petitioner at the examination center. Thus, the case of the petitioner is distinguishable from those 1563 candidates for whom re-examination was conducted because of loss of examination time on account of delay in distribution of correct question paper,” the Court remarked.
Consequently, the Court held, “In the examination, answers were to be rendered by darkening blank circles on the OMR sheet. In such a case, the use of a pen or a pencil is much less than where answers are to be written. Hence, the view taken by the High Court that denial of permission to take a handkerchief inside the examination hall would not have materially affected petitioner’s performance, as he could have rubbed his palms on his clothes, is a plausible view.”
Accordingly, the Supreme Court dismissed the petition.
Cause Title: Talluri Srikar (Minor) Through His Father Talluri Srikrishna v. The Director, National Testing Agency & Ors. (Neutral Citation: 2024 INSC 694)
Appearance:
Respondents: Advocates Pankhuri Srivastava, Neelam Sharma and Alekshendra Sharma