Allahabad HC refuses manual OMR evaluation after candidate wrongly marked question-book number

The Allahabad High Court has dismissed a plea seeking manual evaluation of an OMR answer sheet after a candidate incorrectly marked the question-book number column, holding that examination instructions must be followed strictly.

Justice Siddharth Nandan passed the order in the case of Garima Diwaker vs State of Uttar Pradesh and two others.

The petitioner had entered the correct question-book number, 204103343, on her OMR sheet. However, while filling the corresponding bubbles, she marked the fourth bubble along with the first bubble in the second column. The first bubble represented the digit 0.

The discrepancy resulted in the OMR sheet not being evaluated.

The petitioner argued that the numerical question-book number had been entered correctly and that the additional marking was only a minor error. She sought a direction for manual evaluation of her answer sheet.

Court stresses mandatory examination instructions

The examination authority opposed the plea and told the court that similar errors had occurred in other cases. According to the Commission, around 14,000 OMR sheets had been rejected for such discrepancies.

The Commission also relied on earlier judgments dealing with errors in OMR sheets and the extent to which courts can intervene in examination-related matters.

The High Court referred to the Supreme Court's decision in State of Tamil Nadu and Others vs G Hemalathaa and Another, among other cases, concerning compliance with examination instructions.

The court observed that candidates are expected to carefully read and follow the instructions while filling OMR sheets. Where the prescribed information is not correctly marked, the answer sheet cannot subsequently be evaluated by overlooking the instructions.

Court refuses manual evaluation

The High Court also considered whether the candidate could be given an exception through physical evaluation of the OMR sheet.

The court held that permitting such relief after the examination could raise questions about the fairness and transparency of the examination process.

It further observed that allowing candidates to subsequently correct or complete entries that were required to be marked according to the prescribed instructions could undermine the uniform procedure followed in examinations.

The court therefore concluded that the petitioner could not be granted the requested relief and dismissed the writ petition.

The ruling was delivered in Garima Diwaker vs State of U.P. and 2 Others.