NATIONAL LAW INSTITUTE UNIVERSITY ,BHOPAL

Common Law Method -1st trimester project

DISHA PANCHAL and others

V.

UNION OF INDIA The secretary and Others

WRIT PETITION (CIVIL) NO.551 OF 2018

DECIDED ON -13-7-18

HON’BLE JUDGES /CORAM- UDAY UMESH LALIT ,DEEPAK GUPTA .JJ

(DIVISIONAL BENCH)

SUBMITTED BY - SUBMITTED TO-

RITIK KUMAR RATH PROF.(DR) GHAYUR ALAM

SECTION B

ROLL NO- 2018 BALLB 74

ENROLMENT NUMBER- A-1981


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 Type to enter text

TABLE OF CONTENT
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

CERTIFICATE …………………………………………………………………………………. 3

ACKNOWLEGDMENT…………………………………………………………………………4

MATERIAL FACT………………………………………………………………………………..5

QUESTION OF LAW……………………………………………………………………………6

ARGUMENT ON BEHALF OF PETITIONERS……………………………………………….7

ARGUMENT ON BEHALF OF RESPONDENT………………………………………………8

ARGUMENT ON BEHALF OF INTERVENER ……………………………………………….9

REASON FOR ACCEPTANCE OR REJECTION OF ………………………………….10-12


ARGUMENT

CONCRETE JUDGMENT ……………………………………………………………………..13


RATIO DECIDENDI…………………………………………………………………………….14

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 CERTIFICATE

This is to certify that the research paper titled Disha panchal v. union
of india has been prepared and submitted by Ritik kumar rath ,who is
currently pursuing his BA LLB .(Hons.)at National Law Institute
University ,Bhopal in fulfilment of Common Law Method course .It is
also certified this is original research report and this paper has not
been submitted to any other university ,nor published in any journal .

date -

signature of the student …………………………….

signature of the research supervisor …………………………..

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 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

This paper has been made possible by the unconditional support of many
people . I would like to acknowledge and extent my heartfelt gratitude to
Director (DR.) V. Vijaykumar and PROF.(DR.) Ghayur Alam for guiding
me throughout the development of this paper into a coherent whole by
providing helpful insight and sharing their brilliant expertise .I would
also like to thank the official of the gyan mandir library ,NLIU for
helping me to find the appropriate research material for this study.I am
deep indebted to my parent ,senior and friend for all the moral support
and encouragement.

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 MATERIAL FACT -

the petitioners gave the clat exam on 13.05.18 and faced many problem in it

1) Question of examination did not appear on the screen in the start and then was appearing and
disappearing

2) blank screen and frozen screen in the middle of exam

3) computer were not in good condition and rebooting them did not help them at all.

4)Heat and unfavourable condition as the exam were happening in summer

5) crashing of the exam software

6)power failure and absence of ups for that multiple login was needed as many centre there was
raining and there was multiple power cut

7)The change in rank after compensation will discriminate other student .

8) Time of admission was going to commence eminently so retest would have hindered the
process

9)Majority was unaffected and just minority suffer.

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 QUESTION OF LAW -

1)Under article 14 1of indian constitution that say right to equality is violated of some participant
who faced difficulties in examination which was not faced by other .

2) Whether conducting of the retest is the violation of student right to dignity which comes under
article 212 of indian constitution .

3) Can time bound necessity be applied as a defence for not conducting the retest and
compromising the aggrieved by providing compensation of mark.

4)can the mental trauma faced by student be putted into a legal right

1 Equality before law The State shall not deny to any person equality before the law or the equal
protection of the laws within the territory of India Prohibition of discrimination on grounds of
religion, race, caste, sex or place of birth
2 Protection of life and personal liberty No person shall be deprived of his life or personal liberty
except according to procedure established by law
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Page 7 of 15
 ARGUMENT ON THE BEHALF OF PETITIONER

1)Question did not appeared in the screen at the staring of the exam

2) The option to move to the next question stopped working properly

3)Blank screen and frozen screen in the middle of the exam

4) Invigilators were incompetents and unhelpful - unable to solve the problem

5) computer were dysfunctional and rebooting them was of no help

As there was clubbing of many petition from across india many other argument like

6)heat and unfavourable environment

7) undue time extension were given to some

8)power failure and absence of ups

9)Registered answer disappeared

10) Deliberate cheating in the exam by closing the browser

11) The compensation mechanism isn't helpful as it is judging the efficiency of the student
and the efficiency may have gone down due to time loss in starting

12) Retest for the sake of purity of the exam-

13)-Errors in framing of questions or in the matter of fixing the answer key.

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 ARGUMENT ON THE BEHALF OF RESPONDENT-

Respondent no-2 and no-3 -National University of Advance Legal Studies, Kochi and Core
Committee-Common Law Admission Test 2018

1) On 25.05.2018 have agreed to form a Grievance Redressal Committee consisting of a retired

Judge of the Kerala High Court, Mr. Justice M.R. Hariharan Nair, Dr. Santhosh Kumar G.,
Professor and Head, Department of Computer Science, Cochin University of Science and
Technology. The Committee will be chaired by Mr. Justice M.R. Hariharan Nair
Who will examine every single complaint received online till now and in any further received till
7.00 pm sunday 27 may 2018 and the second phase will take fresh case online upto 27 may 7.00 pm
and it will be filled before court the on 30 may .Dedicated email was made for this purpose in 2
hour

on the part of there negligence the respondent said they said that the 2 main problem was power cut
and software glitches

1) Clause 7 and 19 of annexure 11 . read with clause L and M (3) of Annexure 12 cast duty on Sify
technology to ensure that UPS and Generator facilities were provided so as to ensure facility of
uninterrupted activity for the candidate.

2)Under Cl.8, page 8, of Ann.XII, the Service Provider was duty bound to provide trouble-free
software. Common defect of initial log in failure must have arisen from the hardware, software or
network deficiencies. By this above point respondent no-2 and no-3 told that it was the mistake of
sify technology as they have given all instruction that was raised by the respondent.

3) Time of admission was near so retest will hinder the whole process and create a misbalance in
academic process of majority of situation

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 ARGUMENT ON THE BEHALF OF INTERVENER

In this case the main work of the intervener was to form a mechanism to compensate the student
who have lost there there valuable time

In this case the intervener was the committee form which consist of a retired Judge of the Kerala
High Court, Mr. Justice M.R. Hariharan Nair, Dr. Santhosh Kumar G., Professor and Head,
Department of Computer Science, Cochin University of Science and Technology.

1) The committee first told that the retest of cat 2018 cannot be done as it is a magnanimous
exam which take a lot of time for preparation and the student who have no issue with the exam
to them retest will be a great discrimination as the student who have lost there time can be
compensated but how to compensate other student for the mental stress of retest

2) The compensation mechanism was like the example given was animesh shukla had lost 553
seconds roughly 90 minute and out of 200 question he has corrected 172 question and 47 was
found wrong his score was 113.5 the efficiency was 38.65 second per question and he would
have done 14 extra question if no time loss has happened it mean new stats are 186. question
attempted and 135 correct and 51 wrong so new total 122.25 and difference in mark is 9 mark

3) There was no chance of prejudice in the compensation formula as it proceeds on the basis of
answering efficiency or capacity of a candidate to answer questions in given time and then
applies his rate of success as a parameter. Normally, a candidate would first answer those
questions, whose answers he is well aware of and leave out rest to be answered in the end. His
success rate in the former part would certainly be greater, as compared to the latter. Since he
would be given benefit at the same success rate, there would be no prejudice. It is true that
repeated interruptions would cause mental stress and upset him. But that aspect as a factor is
difficult to be translated in a quantifiable parameter.

4) Based on new merit list the revised position of conceded candidate will be indicated by rank
not. 51A -51B as illustrated by the committee as there will be no heart burn of the candidate of
the people who have already got the seat and adhoc seat will be created for the benefit of the
conceded candidate .


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 REASON FOR THE ACCEPTATION AND REJECTION OF
ARGUMENT

ACCEPTED ARGUMENT REASON-

1-Question of examination did not appear at the screen in the start and then was
appearing and disappearing- The court consider this argument as a valid argument as in
examination like clat where time plays an important role and time loss is a serious matter and when
a single window exam is happening there is no chance that there should be a glitch in the software
but it was there what the court observe .

2-Blank screen and frozen screen in the middle of exam -As said earlie time plays a
important role in the exam like clat and if the middle of exam there is a time loss there is a great
prejudice to student and reporting will also consume time .This also show the software glitches that
should haven’t been there as the software company was duty bound to provide so.

3-COMPUTER WERE DYSFUNCTIONAL AND REBOOTING WAS OF NO

HELP-As clat is single window exam that is given on a computer .The computer should be treated
as necessity and there should be proper arrangement of computer as if the computer are not good
enough how can the exam be given and due to this there was heavy loss of time and student suffer
mental stress

4-HEAT AND UNFAVOURABLE CONDITION- It seem strange but court gave emphasise on
the environment and favourability of the exam room as a argument as the exam was happening in
the peak summer and it will effect the mental level of student which necessary while giving a
competitive exam and the court observe that .

5-POWER FAILURE AND UPS ABSENCE -The court observe that when a exam that is
conducted in such a big manner and which is given in a computer how negligent it can be to have
no stress on power cut and ups in exam the court observe that it was very negligent that ups or any
other power supply system was absent in many center as this effect many student that they loss
precious time and due to power failure the ac was not working and this made more environment
more un pleasant for giving a competitive exam.

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6-On 25.05.2018 have agreed to form a Grievance Redressal Committee- As court
agreed to form a committee as there no other option and this committee will be giving the remedy
for mark lose.

7- POWER CUT AND ABSENCE OF UPS -The court said that when exam of this level was
going to happen necessary arrangement should have been made but the service provider was
negligent even after it was there in as- clause 7 and 19 of annexur 11 . read with clause L and M (3)
of Annexure 12 cast duty on sify technology to ensure that UPS and Generator facilities were
provided so as to ensure facility of uninterrupted activity for the candidate.Court consider this
behaviour negligent

8 -software problem in the exam -court observe the software which was the heart of the exam was
not up to the mark that is needed to for the exam of this level and the service provider was duty
bound under-Cl.8, page 8, of Ann.XII, the Service Provider was duty bound to provide trouble-free
software

9- NO RETEST COULD BE DONE- The court on the saying of the committee said that
retest was never a option as the magnitude of the requirements and the need to ensure smooth
education of the successful candidates during the current academic year. And student who have loss
the time can be compensated but how to compensate the other student for the action of retest.

10-There was no chance of prejudice in the compensation formula- appellant where

saying that the formula was judging the efficiency which may have gone down by mental stress due
to time loss but the court said that stress cannot be measured in quantitive form and the
compensation formula seem rational and court also agreed with the formula

11)Time of admission was going to commence eminently so retest would have hindered the
process-The court saw that admission process was commencing near and it will be a hinderers in
the academic and professional life of majority of student.Which court consider was one of the main
point to not doing the retest.

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REJECTED ARGUMENT REASON-

1)The option to move to the next question stopped working properly- The court
main issue was to compensate for the time loss and court did not consider the working of the next
button and skipping of question important

2) invigilator were not helpful at all to solve the glitches -The court gave less
emphasise on the invigilator as court saw the software itself was not good for this
type of exam and what can be done by the invigilator.

3)UNDUE TIME EXTENSION WERE GIVEN TO SOME- The court from starting consider
this vague as no subsequent proof was not given and court merely rejected it .

4) Registered answer disappeared- Court also consider this argument as vague as there was
no subsequent proof of error like this in the software the only problem was glitches and time loss
and this argument was rejected

5)RETEST FOR THE SAKE OF THE PURITY OF EXAM-The court said exam of
this magnitude is impossible to do once again as it will be burden on thousand student and to ensure
smooth education of the successful candidates during the current academic yearsCourt said no to
retest.

6) compensation mark discrimination to other student- As there was a chance that after
new mark are updated there may be change in the rank and heart burn of student who have already
got the college but court said no change in college allotment and adhoc seat will be created and rank
like 51 A and 51 B will be given so all are given equal opportunity.

7)-Errors in framing of questions or in the matter of fixing the answer

key- The court said that there was no problem in the question paper and it
was observe that it was check by 4 vc and the question of problem are
removed or else omitted from the paper like in the question 83 was removed
and question 153 answer was changed in the next answer key.So court
observe this immaterial .

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 CONCRETE JUDGEMENT-

The court said that our main concern is to stand point of how best to compensate the candidates who
lost valuable time while undergoing test. We must record that we are not at all satisfied with the way
the examination was conducted. The body which was given the task of conducting the examination
was duty bound to ensure facilities of uninterrupted UPS and generator facility. The record indicates
complete inadequacy on that point. We therefore direct Union of India in the Ministry of Human
Resources and Development to appoint a Committee to look into the matter and take appropriate
remedial measures including penal action, if any, against the body which was entrusted with the
task. The committee so constituted shall also look into the aspect of having completely satisfactory
arrangements in future so that no such instances are repeated or reoccur in coming years. We must
also observe that the idea of entrusting the task of monitoring the conduct of entire examination to
different Law Universities every year also needs to be re-visited. The agreement with the
examination conducting body, which was placed on record indicates that as against the amount
made over to such examination conducting body, the fees charged from the candidates are far in
excess. The committee shall bestow consideration to all these aspects after having inputs from such
sources as it may deem appropriate including Bar Council of India and make a detailed report to
this Court within three months from today. The court said we are there was no problem in the exam
but there was blunder in the conduction of exam .

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 Ratio decidendi

under this material fact the conclusion that has been reached that in such
situation the aggrieved student may be compensated in the form of mark but
there is a least chance that retest can happen in such a magnanimous exam
which would adversely effect the future and dignity of majority of student .

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