In Brief
More than 90 candidates challenged the Haryana Civil Service (Judicial Branch) Examination 2017 for Civil Judge positions, contesting the evaluation method that resulted in only 0.702% qualifying (9 of 1,195 candidates). A retired Supreme Court Justice reviewed the process and found uniform but overly strict marking, particularly in Civil Law papers. The Supreme Court upheld the evaluation process as non-discriminatory but found the strict marking caused severe prejudice. It awarded grace marks: 20 in Civil Law-I and 10 in Civil Law-II to all candidates. The Court rejected re-evaluation requests and refused to mandate pre-viva-voce mark disclosure, finding such disclosure could introduce bias. Results were to be prepared within two weeks and the entire selection process completed by February 15, 2020.
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