The Allahabad High court on Friday directed the Uttar Pradesh Public Service Commission (UPPSC) to re-evaluate the answer scripts of preliminary examination conducted for recruitment in upper subordinate services for which advertisement was issued on February 22, 2017. The court denied to direct hold fresh preliminary examinations.

The judgement was passed by a two-judge bench comprising Justices Pankaj Mithal and Saral Srivastava after hearing a dozen of petitions filed by more than hundreds of candidates who have alleged that answers to several of the questions were incorrect. The bench observed, “We do not find it proper to direct the Commission to hold fresh Preliminary Examination rather we deem it proper that for the ends of the justice, the writ petitions should be disposed of with some directions”. The court directed the Commission that it shall re-evaluate the answer scripts of the preliminary examination of all the candidates by deleting question numbers 67/140/44/106 of series A, B, C and D respectively; and by giving full marks for question numbers 121/44/98/10 of series A, B, C and D respectively to those candidates who have exercised options ‘(c)’ or ‘(d)’. It also directed the body to give full marks for question numbers 56/129/33/105 of series A, B, C and D respectively to those candidates who have exercised option ‘(d)’ as correct answer.

The court also directed that the candidates who are found to have qualified in the preliminary examination as a result of re-evaluation, shall become entitled to appear in the main written examination.

“However, some of the candidates who have appeared and qualified earlier in the preliminary examination but have failed to qualify the preliminary examination after revaluation, their candidature shall be cancelled and they shall not be entitled to participate any further in the selection process.”

Before directing to the commission the court had also observed, “We deem it proper in the facts of the present case that the relief should not only be confined to the petitioners before us, but to all those candidates who have appeared at the preliminary examination and could have succeeded had there been no error by commission in notifying the correct answer key.”

The UPPSC had proceeded for filling of 677 posts of upper subordinate services of the State for which advertisement was issued on February 22 ,2017. The preliminary examination was conducted and after declaration of result of preliminary exam, these petitions were filed.

The exam was conducted in September 2017.

After preliminary examination, UP Public Service Commission (UPPSC) had uploaded key answers on its official website in November last year.