' MAZHAR HUSSAIN MINHAS, J.--- Syed Wajeeha-ul-Hassan petitioner has invoked the constitutional jurisdiction of this Court under Article 199 of the constitution of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, 1973 for re-evaluation of his answer sheets of LL.B. Part-III examination 2008, through an independent Board of Examiners.
2. Precisely the facts of this case are that the petitioner appeared in LL.B. Part-III Ist. Annual Examination 2007, held by respondent No,1/ Baha-ud-Zakriya University, Multan, under Roll No,508 and passed the same securing 367 marks out of 700 marks. Since result was not up-to his expectations, therefore, he submitted an application to respondent No,2/ViceChancellor of the University, for inspection of his answer-sheets and their re-checking. His request for inspection of answer-sheets was not acceded to, however re-checking was carried out and he was informed by respondent No,3/Controller of Examinations, vide his office letter No,126/Secy, dated 12-4-2008 in the following terms:-- "The competent authority has found that:--
(1) The answer-book/(s) is/are in your hand-writing.
(2) There is no mistake in totals in the answer-book/(s).
(3) All the questions attempted by you in the answer-book/(s) have been evaluated and marked by the relevant Examiner.
(4) Marks awarded to each question have correctly been transferred in the respective column on the title page.
(5) Marks, 54, 60, 50, 52, 53, 55 and 43 on the basis of which the result has been declared by the Examinations Department are correct on the strength of relevant answer-book/(s).
(6) The result has been correctly complied and declared (this includes checking of answerbook/(s), award-list and result-sheet).
3. Being dissatisfied with action taken by respondent No,3, the petitioner moved another application, dated 15-4-2008 to respondent No,2 praying for constituting an independent Board of Examiners for reevaluation of his answer-books. However, his request did not find favour with the competent authority and vide letter No,1022/Secrecy, dated 24-4-2008 issued by office of respondent No,3, he was informed that there was no strong ground to believe that his answer- books have not justly been evaluated. Nevertheless he was allowed to examine his answer-books on any working day during office hours. Thus, on 28-4-2008 the petitioner perused the answer- sheets and admitted the same to be in his hand-writing. However, in his written acknowledgment he recorded that he was not allowed to note down his question-wise marks.
4. Aggrieved by refusal of the respondents to re-evaluate his answer-books through Specially constituted Board of Examiners, the petitioner has approached this Court through the instant writ petition.
5. The respondents have filed their parawise comments, whereby they have challenged the maintainability of the writ petition on various grounds mainly that the petitioner has not disclosed any criminality, irresponsibility, or fraud and abuse of regulations in marking the papers by examiners, the examiners have not been impleaded as party, matter involves factual controversy, which cannot be resolved by this Court in its extraordinary constitutional jurisdiction and that marking of answer-books is a technical job to be performed by the experts and this Court cannot undertake that in exercise of writ jurisdiction.
6. I have heard learned counsel for the parties and have carefully perused the record available on the file with their assistance.
7. Learned counsel for the petitioner contends that in Part-I and Part-II of LL.B. Examinations, the petitioner has secured 361/600 marks and 420/700 marks, respectively and was expecting above 70 percent marks in LL.B. Part-III exams., also as he took the examination with full preparation and answered the requisite questions of all the papers correctly. But as per result announced by the respondents, he has secured 367/700 marks, whereas some other students, whose performance in part-I and Part-II examinations was quite poor, have been awarded 80 percent marks. According to learned counsel, in LL.B. Part-I and Part-II examinations, the petitioner stood first out of approximately 1400 students of law and keeping in view his over all performance, he has been held entitled to gold medal by the respondents/University. It has been further submitted that the petitioner has suffered a serious set back to his academic career due to malice of examiners.
Lastly, it has been prayed that the petitioner's answer-books may be requisitioned from respondents Nos. 2 and 3 and be perused by the Court itself and a direction to the respondents for re-evaluation of the papers through an independent Board of Examiners may be issued.
8. Conversely, learned counsel for the respondents has vigorously repelled the contentions of learned counsel for the petitioner and has reiterated points raised in the parawise comments.
Learned counsel has urged that the petitioner has not specifically attributed any or malice to any of the examiners, therefore, there is no sufficient ground for re-evaluation of his answer-books.
9. In LL.B. Part-III examinations there were seven papers, which have been passed by the petitioner with 367 out of 700 total marks. Detail of the papers and marks obtained by him is as under:-- Nos.Subjects Marks obtained 1 Civil Procedure 54/100 2 Criminal Procedure 60/100 3 Law of Evidence 50/100 4 Conveyancing & Pleading52/100 5 Administrative Law 53/100 6 Minor Acts 55/100 7 Labour & Taxation Law 43/100
10. The above detail shows that in five papers the petitioner has secured marks within the range of 52 to 55 percent. Only in Criminal Procedure, he has obtained 60 percent marks while in Labour and Taxation Law, he has not been able to get even 50 percent marks. In LL.B. Part-I and Part-II examinations also, he obtained 60 percent marks. Thus, his over-all performance in all the three examinations does not manifest the extraordinary calibre of the petitioner due to which he was legitimately excepting above 70 percent marks in Part-III examination. In his writ petition, he has not levelled specific allegation of malice or against any of the examiners due to which he was awarded less marks in the relevant paper. It cannot be expected that all the examiners were inimical towards him and they victimized him to satiate their grudge. It is established law that in the absence of any mala fide or fraud against the examiner, exercise of re-evaluation of the answer-books cannot be undertaken merely for the satisfaction of a candidate. The criteria and guidelines for re-evaluation of the answer- books has been laid down by the Hon'ble Supreme Court of Pakistan in "Board of Intermediate and Secondary Education, Lahore through its Chairman and another v. Mst. Salma Afroze and 2 others (PLD 1992 SC 263). In this judgment, it has been held that there should be ex-facie disclosure of criminality, irresponsibility or fraud and abuse of regulations in marking the papers. The stages in which such a controversy could be examined were that first the identity of the script or answer-book was to be established by visual inspection of it by the candidate. He must own it. It must be his. Next perversity, the abuse, the criminality in evaluating it should be particularized by complete disclosure before the Chairman of the Board as well as before the Court. The person/examiner accused of having indulged in malpractice should be impleaded as a party in Court and allowed to meet the allegations. In the present case as mentioned above, on petitioner's representation, the exercise of re-checking of the answer-sheets has been undertaken and no discrepancy in marks of different questions and their total has been found. The petitioner has been afforded opportunity to inspect his answer-sheets also. But neither before the respondents nor before this Court any perversity or B malpractice of any examiner in evaluating his answer-books or violation of any rules/regulations of the respondents/ University has been disclosed. Therefore, in view of the above judgment, the petitioner is not entitled to re- evaluation of his answer-books merely for his personal satisfaction. As regards prayer to requisition the answer-books for perusal by this Court, the Hon'ble Supreme Court of Pakistan has disapproved this practice and has held that marking of answer-books is a technical job, which can be done only by the experts and cannot be undertaken by the High Court. In this respect, reference may be made to "Abdul Karim Karim Hashmi v. Federal Public Service Commission through Chairman and 8 others" (2002 SCM R 504), "Muhammad Jaffar Hussain v. Chairman, Board of Intermediate and Secondary Education, D.G. Khan and others" (1999 SCM R 2405) and "Board of Intermediate and Secondary Education, Lahore v. Saima Azad" (1996 SCM R 676).
' In the first judgment placing reliance on (1996 SCM R 676), it has been observed that marking of numbers on the answer-book is a Technical job which High Court is not expected to undertake in exercise of its powers of judicial review under. Article 199 of the Constitution. In "Muhammad Jaffar Hussain v. Chairman, Board of Intermediate and Secondary Education, D.G. Khan and others" (1999 SCM R 2405) also it has been held that marking of answer-books is a job to be performed by experts in subject concerned and the High Court in exercise of its constitutional jurisdiction is not required to evaluate papers in any other manner.
11. In view of the above factual and legal position, there is no merit in the writ petition, hence the same is dismissed.