Additional district judge exams: Orissa HC directs revaluation of candidate's two answers

CUTTACK: The Orissa High Court has ordered revaluation of two answers given by a candidate who had appeared for the written examination for recruitment of additional district judge directly from the Bar six years ago.

The court issued the order on Wednesday in the case of Amitav Tripathy, who took the written examination conducted by the High Court in 2016 and failed qualify for the interview.

The results of the written examination were declared in the same year but the answer scripts were out on October 2017. Subsequently, on February 2, 2018, he filed in the HC a petition seeking recalculation and revaluation of Paper II.

The two judge bench of Chief Justice S Muralidhar and Justice RK Pattanaik said in the present case, the court has perused the answers to the questions 1 and 3 of Group-D where the petitioner has been awarded 0.5 marks each. 

The maximum marks assigned to the concerned questions were 5 each The bench said, "Having carefully considered the matter, the court is of the view that the answers of the petitioner to the above two questions must be asked to be revalued by a law expert."

It directed the Registrar (Examinations) to send the original answer script of the petitioner to any law expert, as may be chosen by the examination committee, in a sealed cover. Only the answers to questions 1 and 3 of Group-D should be revalued and the result be placed before the court on the next date, May 18.

"The ourt would like to clarify that it considers this to be a “rare and exceptional case” and further clarifies that this order should not be construed as a since every case of this kind would turn on its peculiar facts and circumstances," the bench said.