The Himachal Pradesh High Court recently decided that when a competitive-exam answer key has been finalized on the basis of a subject expert’s opinion — including after objections have been considered — a court should not substitute its own judgment unless the expert opinion is “demonstrably wrong on the face of the record.” In the case before it, a petitioner challenged the result of a screening test for the post of constable, claiming he had been wrongly denied one mark. The petitioner argued that the answer given in the revised answer key was incorrect.
The court noted that after the provisional answer key was released, approximately 1,200 objections were filed in respect of various questions, including the one raised by the petitioner. The commission responsible for conducting the exam referred all objections, including his, to a subject expert, who reviewed them and recommended the final answer key. Once that final key was adopted, marks were awarded accordingly. The High Court found no procedural irregularity or legal infirmity in this process.
In its order, the court observed that “the person who set the paper is the best person to verify” the correctness of its answers. The bench held that unless the expert opinion is shown to be plainly and obviously wrong — on its face — there is no basis for judicial interference. The court thus refused to disturb the answer key or the result, dismissing the challenge.
This ruling aligns with a broader judicial trend: in matters of technical or subject‑matter expertise such as evaluation of answer keys, courts defer to experts and limit their own role. Unless there is a clear, non‑ambiguous error, the expert‑determined key is to be presumed correct.
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