Courts can’t don examiner role for judicial review

Pointing out that a court cannot sit in appeal over the wisdom of the examiner in exercise of the authority of judicial review, the Madras High Court dismissed a plea moved by a 24-year-old law graduate of being marked unfairly in one of the papers, which resulted in him not coming within the zone of consideration for recruitment as Civil Judge in the Tamil Nadu State Judicial Service.

When the plea came up before it for hearing, the first bench comprising Chief Justice Sanjib Banerjee and Justice PD Audikesavalu said the court could not sit in appeal over the wisdom of the examiner in exercise of the authority of judicial review.

“Even though the subject here is law, a subject that the members of this bench should otherwise be conversant with, the matter is one of principle. The knowledge of judges cannot be imputed in such a case since it would be dangerous if the subject pertains to astrophysics or rocket science or complex mathematics. “What is required to be seen is whether there has been any palpable error in examining the answer or in the marking system. On a reading of the answers, it does not appear that the petitioner has been hard done by,” the bench held.

The court said the exercise under Article 226 of the Constitution has more to do with the decision-making process rather than the decision itself. “Since it appears that a fair procedure was followed and the answers furnished have been considered and the relevant answers found unworthy of being awarded any marks, the petitioner may have lost out,” the bench observed. The petitioner, R Karthikeyan, had submitted that he fared well in three other papers but obtained only 30.25% marks in Law Paper-I. This was because he was given zero marks for descriptive answers though some marks could have been awarded, he said.