BDIAR SCHOOL EXAMINATION BOARD v. SUBHAS CHANDRA SINHA & Ors.

Appeal by special leave from the judgment and order dated December 8, 1969 of the Patna High Court in C.W.J.C. No. 1040 of l 969. c Sarjoo Prasad, Roy Paras Nath, S. K. Bisaria and S. S. Jahar, for the appellant. D S. N. Prasad, for the respondents. The Judgment of the Court was delivered by Hidayatullah, C.J., This is an appeal against the judgment and order of the High Court of Patna, December 8, 1969 in Civil Writ Jurisdiction Case No. 1040 of 1969. It is brought to this Court by special leave. The appellant is the Bihar School Exa mination Board through its Chairman. The respondents are 36 students of S.S.H.E, School, Jagdishpur and H. E. School Mal- E aur, District Shahabad. They had moved the High Court under Art. 226 of the Constitution against the order of the Board can celling annual Secondary School ExaminaHon of 1969 in relation to Hanswadih centre in Shahbad District. They had also asked that a mandamus be issued to the Board to publish the results of the students who appeared at this centre. The High Court has F quashed the order of cancellaHon and directed the Board to pub- lish the results. Candidates at the Secondary School Examination held in March, 1969 appeared at various centres including Hanswadih Centre. The results were published in July 1969 but the results of examinees at Hanswadih centre were not released. On July 22, · 1969 it was reported in a local Hindi daily newspaper thaa the results of this centre and others were under consideration. On August 30, 1969 a communique from the Board appeared in the newspaper Searchlight that the examinations of all subjects held at the Secondary School Examination of 1969 at Hanswadih centre were cancelled and the reason was that unfair means were prac tised on a large scale at this Centre. Examinees were, however, allowed to appear at the supplementary Secondary School Exami nation to be held in September, 1969. G H A B c D E I' G B!HAR EXAM. BOARD v. s. c. SINHA (Hidayatullah, C.J.) 965 The respondents challenged the order of the Board on many grounds. The main grounds we_re that there was no complaint of use of unfair means; that no opportunity had been given to the examinees to show cause before passing the order of cancellation against them; that as the Supplementary Examination was to be held within 10 days of the communique there was no time for the students to prepare for the examination; that the cancellation ooght to have been announced before publishing the results of other centres . and lastly that the order passed by the Chairman and not by the Baord, was not a valid order under the Bihar School Examination Board Regulations. From the record of the case 'and the return which has been filed by the Board the following facts appear : The Tabulators of the Hanswadih centres', reported that the percentage of successful examinees was as high as 80% whereas the average at the Arrah, Dalippur centres was only 50%. They were therefore asked to prepare percentage subjectwise. All the The matter was refer Tabulators submitted these precentages. red to the Unfair Means Committee of the Board. The Com mittee in its turn asked the Moderators to look into all the answer books where the percentage was 80% or more. They reported unfair means on a mass scale. The Chairman then passed an order on August 30, 1969 cancelling the examination in all sub jects at the Hanswadih Centre allowing the examinees to re-appear at the Supplementary Examination in September, 1969 without payment of fresh fees. The Head Masters of the three schools concerned were also informed by registered letters. The action of the Chairman w11s placed before the Board at its meeting on September 9, 1969 and was approved. It was stated\in the return that a complaint was received from one Satnarain Singh of Jagdish pur, who, however, wrote a letter that he had made no such complaint. The High Court gave a finding that the high percentages did give rise to a suspicion that unfair means were practised and that the Board was justified in investigating the case. It was, how ever, held that the examinees were not given a chance to show cause and the materials on which the Chairman of the Board passed his order were not disclosed-to the examinees. The Board had therefore failed to act according to the principles of natural justice and the order of the Chairman and/ or .the Board could not, therefore, be sustained. The High Court relied upon Board of High School & Intermediate Education. U.P., Allahabad v. Ghanshyam Das Gupta and others(') and Ajit Singh and others v. It commented upon the short interval bet- Ranchi Universlty('). (I) [1962] Supp. 3 S.C R. 36. (2) A.l.R. 1964 Patna 291. - " 966 SUPREME COURT REPORTS [1970] 3 s.c.a. ween the communique and the Supplementary Examination and A - held that the communique should have been issued before the results had been published. The High Court also considered the competence of the Chairman to pass the order under the Regula- tions but did not decide it as it reached the conclusion that the principles of natural justice were violated and the orders of the Chairman and/ or the Board were, therefore unsustainable. The B order of the Board was quashed and the publication of the results of the Hanswadih Centre was ordered. This Court granted spe- leave and directed stay of the operation of the order of the High Court. We heard this appeal on February 25, 1970. Since the next c examination at which the respondents can appear is scheduled to be held in March, we did not wish to delay the decision of the appeal. We accordingly passed an order allowing the appeal and set aside the order of the High Court but stated that we would give our detailed reasons later. We now proceed to do so. All the arguments which were presented in the High Court were repeated before us by the learned counsel for the responde12t. We find it convenient to consider some of them before taking up the point on which the High Court has cancelled the order ot _ the Board and directed the publication of the results. The argument that no one had complained about the exami nation need not detain us. The Tabulators sent thier remarks on which investigation was made. The Unfair Means Committee and the Moderators gave their opinion. These were sufficient for taking action. There was no need lo wait for a complaint, nor. was a complaint really necessary. The results were withheld so that inquiries could be completed. In the meantime the results of the other centres which were not under suspicion could be declared because in their case there was no reason to withhold publication. The contention that the Board alone and not the Chairman could, cancel the examinations need not detain us. Under s. 6(2) of the Bihar School Examinations Board Act, the Board co~­ siders, moderates, determines and publishes the results of exami It also admits ca, ndidates to examinations, disqualifies nations. them for any reason which it considers to be adequate. l,Jnder s. 9(3) of the Act in an emergency the powers of the Chatrll:!an are co-terminus with those of the Board and he can take acl!on himself and later report it to the Board. ~n this· case action ~as taken by the Chairman and he reported 1t. to the Board w¥ch folly endorsed it. Therefore the cancellatmn of the examma- D r G H » / A B c D E F G H BIHAR EXAM. BOARD v. s. c. SINHA (Hidayatul/ah, C.J.) 967 tions at Hanswadih Centre .must be treated as an order of the Board and cannot, therefore, be challenged on the ground that it was incompetently made. . This brings us to the crux of the problem. The High Court mterfered on the ground that natural justice and fair play were not observed in this case. This was repeated to us by the res pondents in the appeal. A mention of fair play does not come very '."ell from the respondents who were grossly guilty of breach of faJI play themselves at the examinations. Apart from the reports of the experts, the results speak for themselves. At the other centres the average of successful candidates was 50%. At this centre the examinations had the following percentage : 94 70 95 90 JOO 92 96 99 88 70 IOO 99 .100 I. Mother Indian Language 2. English .. 3. Social Studies 4. Everyday Science 5. Elementary Mathematics 6. Economics & Civics 7. Elementary Physiology and Hygiene 8. Geography 9. History IO. Physics 11. Chemistry 12. Advance Mathematics 13. Sanskrit These figures speak for themselves. However, to satisfy our selves we ordered that some answer books be brought for our inspection and many such were produced. A comparison of the answer books showed such a remarkable agreement in the answers that no doubt was left in our minds that" the students had assistance from an outside source. Therefore the conclusion tha~ unfair means were adopted stands completely vindicated. This is not a case of any particular individual who is being charged with adoption of unfair means but of the conduct of all the examinees or at least a vast majority of them at ::! parti cular centre. If it is not a question of charging any one indi vidually with unfair .means but to condemn the examinat<on as ineffective for the purpose it was held, must the Board give an opportunity to all the candidates to represent their cases '! We think not. It was not necessary for the Board to give an oppor tunity to the candidates if the examinations as a whole were being · cancelled. The Board had not charged any one with unfair means so that he could claim to defend himself. The examination 968 SUPREME COURT REPORTS [1970) 3 S.C.R. was viti!lted by· adoption of unfair means on a mass scale. these circumstances it would be wrong to insist that the Board must hold a detailed inquiry into the matter arid examine each individual case to satisfy itself which of the canaidates had no~ adopted unfair means. The examination as a whole had to go. In A I Reliance was placed upon Ghanshyam Das Gupta's case('), to which we referred earlier. There the examination results of three candidates· were cancelled, and this Court held that they should have received an opportunity Of explaining their conduct. It was also said that even if the inquiry involved a large number of persons, the Committee should frame proper regulations for the conduct of such inquiries but not deny the opportunjty. We do not think that that case has any application. Surely it was not intended that where the examination as a whole was vitiated, say by leakage of papers or by destruction of some of the answer books or by discovery of unfair means practised on a vast scale that an inquiry would be made giving a chance to every one appearing at that examination to have his say? What the Court intended to Jay down was that if any particular person was to be proceeded against, he must have a proper chance to defend him self and this did not obviate the necessity of giving an opportunity even though the number of persons proceeded against was large. The C0urt was then not considering the right of an examining body to cancel its own examination when it was satisfied that the examination was not properly conducted or that in the conduct of the examination the majority of the examine.es had not conducted themselves as they should have. To make such decisions depend upon a full-fledged judicial inquiry would hold up the functioning of such autonomous bodies as Universities and School Board. While we do not wish to whittle down the requirements of natural justice and fair play in cases where such requirement may be said to arise, we do not want that this Court should be understood as having stated that an inquiry with a right to representation must always precede in every case, however different. The . univer sities are responsible for their standards and the conduct of ex aminations. The essence of the examinations is that the worth of every person is appraised without any assistance from an outsi<le source. If at a centre the whole bodv of students receive assis tance and manage to secure success· in the neighbourhood of 100% when others at other centres are successful only at an average of 50%, it is obvious that the university or the Board must do some thing in the matter. It cannot hold a detailed quasi-judicial in quiry with a right to its alumni to plead and lead evidence etc. be fore the results are withheld or the examinations cancelled. If [I] £1962] Supp. 3 S C.R. 36. B c D I F G H I A B c BIHAR EXAM~ BOARD V. s. c. SINHA (Hidayatul/ah, C.l.) 969 there is sufficient material. on which it can be demonstrated that the university was right in its conclusion that the examinations ought to be cancelled then academic standards require that the university's appreciation of the problem must be respe, cted. It would not do for the Couri to say that he should have examined all the candidates or even their representatives wHh a view to ascer- taining whether they had received assistance or not. To do this would enco~rage indiscipline if not also perjury. We are satisfied that no principle of .natural justice was vio lated in !his case. The Boarcj through its Chairman and later it self reached the right conclusion that the examinations at this Centre had be.en vitiated by practising unfair means on a mass scale and the Board had every right to cancel the examination and order thai a fresh examination be held. There was no need to give the examinees· an opportunity of contesting this conclusion because the evidence in the case was perfectly plain and trans- · parent. We therefore set aside the order of the High Court and ordered dismissal of the writ petition but made no order as to D. costs. V.P.S. Appeal allowed.