Revaluation of Answer Sheets – Department’s recent instructions
Government of India

Ministry of Communications & I Technology

Department of Posts(DE Section)
Dak Bhava, Sansad Marg,New Delhi – 110116

No. A-34018/10/2010-DE Dated – 02.08.2010

To,1. All Heads of Circles

2. Addl. D G APS, West Block III, Wing No. 5, R.K. Puram, New Delhi – 1100673.

3.BD and PLI Directorates

4. Directors, Postal Staff College India, Ghaziabad and PTCs

Sub: - Revaluation of answer papers – judgment pronounced by Hon’ble Supreme Court in the Civil Appeal No. (s) 897 of 2006 and 907 of 2006 between Himachal Pradesh Public Service Commission (Appellant) and Mukesh Thakur & Anr (Respondents).

Sir/Madam,

I am directed to enclose copy of the subject cited judgement of Hon Supreme Court of India.

2. Consequent on introduction of RTI Act 2005 and the directions of the CIC to supply photocopies of answer papers to the candidates, filing of Court cases in the Tribunals has increased enormously. Various CAT Benches are also directing the Department to get the answer papers revaluated on filing writ petitions in the High Courts against the orders of the CAT Benches, the High Courts are also disposing off the cases saying that they don’t want to interfere in the matter. It is stated that Rule 15-Appendix-37 of Postal Manual Volume-IV clearly stipulates “Revaluation of answer script is not permissible in any case or under any circumstances”. Thus it is not permissible to consider requests after declaration of results as it will not only cause great inconvenience to the examination process and also cause hindrance to the administration in the absence of vacancies of particular category viz; OC, SC, ST etc under departmental quota but also be against the spirit of ibid Rule.

3. It may be seen that representations requesting for revaluation of answer papers are being received in this office specifically pointing out the following grievances:

(i) Particular answer (s) were not evaluated

(ii) Excess attempted answer (s) were not evaluated

(iii) For the same answer (s), the examiner awarded marks to one candidate and to another candidate no marks were assigned or the answer struck off as wrong

(iv) All the answers were evaluated but justified marks were not awarded by the examiner

4. The issues indicated at (i) to (iii) above are justified and need to be examined by the competent authority to find out the facts and if the claim of the candidate appears to be genuine, revaluation may be got done by an independent examiner in such cases and further necessary action may be taken. In so far as the issues indicated at (iv) above, there is no need to consider such requests and merits rejection at the initial stage itself.

5. In the similar situation in the Civil Appeal No. (s) 897 of 2006 and 907 of 2006 between Himachal Pradesh Public Service Commission (Appellant) and Mukesh Thakur & Anr (Respondents), Hon. Supreme Court of India has upheld the plea of the Himachal Pradesh Public service Commission rejecting the request of a candidate for revaluation. In the light of the judgment of Hon. Supreme Court, it is requested to review all pending court cases filed in various CAT Benches/High Courts by the candidates of various departmental examinations seeking directions for revaluation and declaring them as successful on the pretext that the evaluation was not done properly by the examiners and file suitable interim replies in the courts producing the copy of the Supreme Court judgement seeking dismissal of the cases. All pending representations received from the applicants seeking revaluation of answer papers covered under item (iv) of para 3 above may also be disposed off at the Divisional/Regional/Circle level as the case may be without forwarding the same to the office.

6. This issues with the approval of Member (P)

7. The receipt of the letter may please be acknowledged

Yours faithfully,

Sd/-

(L. Mohan Rao)

Assistant Director General (DE)