Supreme Court Sets Aside Allahabad HC Order Directing Re-evaluation of UPPSC Preliminary Exam Answer Scripts
A Division Bench of Justices Dipankar Datta and Sheel Nagu held that the Allahabad High Court exceeded its judicial review jurisdiction by directing re-evaluation of examination answer scripts as though it were an expert body.
The Supreme Court on 5 August 2026 allowed an appeal filed by the Uttar Pradesh Public Service Commission, setting aside a December 2016 order of the Allahabad High Court that had directed comprehensive re-evaluation of preliminary examination answer scripts for the Combined State/Upper Subordinate Services Examinations, 2016. The Division Bench — comprising Justice Dipankar Datta and Justice Sheel Nagu — found that the High Court had acted as if it were “an expert of experts” in examining disputed questions, a role that courts cannot assume. The order also confirmed that the High Court's directions had been stayed since April 2017 and were never implemented, making the dispute largely academic by the time the appeal was finally heard.
How the Dispute Reached the Supreme Court
Candidates who had sat for the Combined State/Upper Subordinate Services (General Recruitment) Examination, 2016 and the Combined State/Upper Subordinate Services (Special Recruitment) Examination, 2016, conducted by the UPPSC, filed a writ petition before the Allahabad High Court questioning the examination results.
The High Court took note of the statutory scheme under the Uttar Pradesh State Public Service Commission (Regulation of Procedure) Act, 1985 and examined the procedure followed by the Commission in setting and revising the provisional answer key. After finding that, despite expert involvement at every recruitment stage, a large number of discrepancies had crept into the question paper and answer key, the High Court allowed the writ petition on 9 December 2016.
The UPPSC challenged that order before the Supreme Court. Leave was granted on 7 April 2017, and the High Court's directions were stayed on the same date.
What the Allahabad High Court Had Directed
The impugned order required the Commission to re-evaluate the answer scripts of the preliminary examination for all candidates, specifically by deleting questions 25, 66, and 92 entirely and by awarding full marks on question 44 to any candidate who had chosen option (b) or (c).
The consequences of that re-evaluation were cascading. Candidates who qualified the preliminary examination only after re-evaluation would become entitled to sit for the main written examination, which the Commission was directed to hold at the earliest. Results of the main examination already held were to be withheld until results for the newly eligible cohort were also declared. The Commission was then required to draw a combined merit list from both sets of main examination results and to conduct interviews on that basis.
Conversely, candidates who had already appeared in the first main written examination but who, under the re-evaluated preliminary results, would not have qualified the preliminary stage at all, were to have their candidatures cancelled and were to be excluded from the selection process entirely.
The High Court, while expressing displeasure at the Commission's conduct, also recommended that the Commission enhance expert remuneration so that such errors are not repeated.
The Ran Vijay Singh Principles Applied by the Court
Counsel for the UPPSC, Ms. Himanshi Girdhar, argued that the directions were contrary to a line of decisions of the Supreme Court. The principal authority she relied upon was Ran Vijay Singh v. State of Uttar Pradesh, reported at (2018) 2 SCC 357, which had itself disapproved several High Court decisions on the same question.
The Court in Ran Vijay Singh had distilled the law into five conclusions. First, where a statute, rule, or regulation expressly permits re-evaluation or scrutiny of an answer sheet as a matter of right, the examining authority may allow it. Second, where the governing rules are silent on re-evaluation — as distinct from expressly prohibiting it — a court may permit re-evaluation only when it is demonstrated very clearly, without any inferential process of reasoning or rationalisation, and only in rare or exceptional cases, that a material error has been committed. Third, a court should not re-evaluate or scrutinise answer sheets at all, having no expertise in the matter; academic questions are best left to academics. Fourth, courts should presume the correctness of the key answers. Fifth, in the event of doubt, the benefit must go to the examining authority rather than to the candidate.
Applying these principles, the Division Bench found that the Allahabad High Court had gone well beyond what judicial review permits. The Court found the manner in which the High Court had examined the disputed questions, and the directions it had issued as a result, to be “clearly indefensible.”
Why Nine Years Had Passed
The Court observed that the stay granted at the leave stage in April 2017 had ensured the High Court's directions were never carried out. By the time the appeal was finally heard in August 2026, nine years had elapsed. The Court presumed that fresh examinations had been conducted by the Commission in the intervening period, and that the respondent candidates, having lost interest in the matter, had chosen not to appear before the Court — no one appeared on their behalf on the date of hearing.
Outcome
The Supreme Court set aside the judgment and order of the Allahabad High Court dated 9 December 2016 in its entirety. Civil Appeal No. 4970 of 2017 was allowed. All pending interlocutory applications, if any, were disposed of.