# BDIAR SCHOOL EXAMINATION BOARD v. SUBHAS CHANDRA SINHA & ORS

- **Citation:** [1970] 3 S.C.R. 963
- **Court:** Supreme Court of India
- **Decided:** 1970-03-10
- **Case number:** Civil Appeal No. 2620 of 1969
- **Bench:** M. Hidayatullah, A. N. Ray, I. D. Dua
- **Source:** https://unisonlegal.in/judgment/supreme-court-of-india/bdiar-school-examination-board-v-subhas-chandra-sinha-ors-5007
- **Pages:** 7

## Headnote

c
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Natural Justice-Evidence of unfair means at examination at a parN•
cular centre appGrent--Cancellation of eXIQmination at the centr;:-
Whether notice to exa1ninees necessary,
Bihar School Examination Board Act (Bihar Act 7 of 1952) s. 9(3)-
Scope of.
Candidates at the Secondary School Examination held in March 1969,
appeared at various centres.
The results at all centres were published in
July 1969, except those at a particular centre. The tabulators at that
centre reported that the percentage of marks and of successful candidates
was unusually high ( 80 % or more) . The matter was referred to the
Unfair Means Committee of the Board. A comparison of the
aO'\i'er
books at that centre showed such a remarkable agreement in the ansvters,
that it was obvious that unfair means were adopted and that the students
had assistance from an outside source. The Chairman p3ssed an Order
on August 30, 1969, cancelling the examination at the centre and allowing
the examinees at the centre to re-appear at the Supplementary Examination
in September The action of the Chairman was placed before the 803.t'd
and was approved.
.
The respondents.· \\'ho \\'ere the examinees at that centre movei.! the
High Court under Art. 226 and the High Court quashed the ~rder cf tl.te
Board and ordered· publication of the results of that centre.
In appeal to this Court,
HELD : (I) There was enough material for the Chairman and the
Board for taking action without .any complaint from anybody of the use
di unfair means. [966 E-FJ
(2) There was no reason for __ \vithholding the publication ·of r.!3trJts
of other centres which \vere not- under suspension. [966 F]
(3) Under s. 9(3) of the Bihar School Examination Board Act. in
an emergency, the powers of the Chairman are co-terminus with thOSI! of
the Board and he can take action himself and later repdrt it to the Board.
Therefore, the order of the Chairman in the present case \Vas not in::i'11·
petent. [966 C-F; 967 A]
( 4) The es·sence of an examination is that the worth of every p-;rson
is appraised without any assistance from an outside source. If at a C':!Dtre
the whole body of students received assistance and managed to s.Jurce
success at a high percentage, when at other centres, the average \Vas only
50%, the
University or the Board ould cancel the
exan1ir:.;:i,tion
as tf whole; and if there was sufficient material on which it could be
demonstrated that the Authority was right in its conclusion that the cxami ..
nation as a whole \vas vitiated then academic standards require th.lt the
Authority's appreciation of the problem must be respected. To make ouch
a decision depend upon a full-fledged judicial inquiry would hold up the
functioning of such autonomous bodies as lJniversities and School Beards.
!967 G-H; 968 E-HJ
96~
SUPREME COURT .REPORTS
(1970] 3 S.C.R.
Jn the present case, no principle of natural justice was violated and
the1e was no need to give the examinees an opportunity to contest the
conclusion, because, the evidence was plain
and transparent,
and
the
Beard had not charged anyone with unfair means so that he could claim
to defend himself.
Therefore, the order of the High Court must be set
aside and the respondents-candidates allowed to sit for the next examination.
[969 B-Dl
Board of High School Intermediate Examination, U.P. Allahabad v.
Ghanshyam Das Gupta and Ors. (1962] Supp. 3 S.C.R. 36, explained.

## Text

963
A
BDIAR SCHOOL EXAMINATION BOARD
v.
SUBHAS CHANDRA SINHA & ORS.
February 25, March 10, 1970.
B
[M. HIDAYATULLAH, C. J., A. N. RAY AND I. D. DUA, JJ.]
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G
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Natural Justice-Evidence of unfair means at examination at a parN•
cular centre appGrent--Cancellation of eXIQmination at the centr;:-
Whether notice to exa1ninees necessary,
Bihar School Examination Board Act (Bihar Act 7 of 1952) s. 9(3)-
Scope of.
Candidates at the Secondary School Examination held in March 1969,
appeared at various centres.
The results at all centres were published in
July 1969, except those at a particular centre. The tabulators at that
centre reported that the percentage of marks and of successful candidates
was unusually high ( 80 % or more) . The matter was referred to the
Unfair Means Committee of the Board. A comparison of the
aO'\i'er
books at that centre showed such a remarkable agreement in the ansvters,
that it was obvious that unfair means were adopted and that the students
had assistance from an outside source. The Chairman p3ssed an Order
on August 30, 1969, cancelling the examination at the centre and allowing
the examinees at the centre to re-appear at the Supplementary Examination
in September The action of the Chairman was placed before the 803.t'd
and was approved.
.
The respondents.· \\'ho \\'ere the examinees at that centre movei.! the
High Court under Art. 226 and the High Court quashed the ~rder cf tl.te
Board and ordered· publication of the results of that centre.
In appeal to this Court,
HELD : (I) There was enough material for the Chairman and the
Board for taking action without .any complaint from anybody of the use
di unfair means. [966 E-FJ
(2) There was no reason for __ \vithholding the publication ·of r.!3trJts
of other centres which \vere not- under suspension. [966 F]
(3) Under s. 9(3) of the Bihar School Examination Board Act. in
an emergency, the powers of the Chairman are co-terminus with thOSI! of
the Board and he can take action himself and later repdrt it to the Board.
Therefore, the order of the Chairman in the present case \Vas not in::i'11·
petent. [966 C-F; 967 A]
( 4) The es·sence of an examination is that the worth of every p-;rson
is appraised without any assistance from an outside source. If at a C':!Dtre
the whole body of students received assistance and managed to s.Jurce
success at a high percentage, when at other centres, the average \Vas only
50%, the
University or the Board ould cancel the
exan1ir:.;:i,tion
as tf whole; and if there was sufficient material on which it could be
demonstrated that the Authority was right in its conclusion that the cxami ..
nation as a whole \vas vitiated then academic standards require th.lt the
Authority's appreciation of the problem must be respected. To make ouch
a decision depend upon a full-fledged judicial inquiry would hold up the
functioning of such autonomous bodies as lJniversities and School Beards.
!967 G-H; 968 E-HJ
96~
SUPREME COURT .REPORTS
(1970] 3 S.C.R.
Jn the present case, no principle of natural justice was violated and
the1e was no need to give the examinees an opportunity to contest the
conclusion, because, the evidence was plain
and transparent,
and
the
Beard had not charged anyone with unfair means so that he could claim
to defend himself.
Therefore, the order of the High Court must be set
aside and the respondents-candidates allowed to sit for the next examination.
[969 B-Dl
Board of High School Intermediate Examination, U.P. Allahabad v.
Ghanshyam Das Gupta and Ors. (1962] Supp. 3 S.C.R. 36, explained.
CIVIL APPELLATE JURISDICTION : Civil Appeal No. 2620 of
1969.
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.
Sarjoo Prasad, Roy Paras Nath, S. K. Bisaria and S. S.
Jahar, for the appellant.
S. N. Prasad, for the respondents.
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The Judgment of the Court was delivered by
D
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 Examination Board through its Chairman.
The respondents are 36
students of S.S.H.E, School, Jagdishpur and H. E. School MalE
aur, District Shahabad. They had moved the High Court under
Art. 226 of the Constitution against the order of the Board cancelling 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 publish 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 practised on a large scale at this Centre.
Examinees were, however,
allowed to appear at the supplementary Secondary School Examination to be held in September, 1969.
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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
Tabulators submitted these precentages.
The matter was referred to the Unfair Means Committee of the Board.
The Committee 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 subjects 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 Jagdishpur, 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, however, 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.
Ranchi Universlty('). It commented upon the short interval bet-
(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 special 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 examination 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 examinations.
It also admits ca,ndidates to examinations, disqualifies
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 exammaD
r
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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 respondents 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 :
I. Mother Indian Language
94
2. English
70
3. Social Studies ..
95
4. Everyday Science
90
5. Elementary Mathematics
JOO
6. Economics & Civics
92
7. Elementary Physiology and Hygiene
96
8. Geography
99
9.
History
88
IO. Physics
70
11. Chemistry
IOO
12. Advance Mathematics
99
13. Sanskrit
.100
These figures speak for themselves.
However, to satisfy ourselves 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 ::! particular centre. If it is not a question of charging any one individually 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 opportunity 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.
In
A
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.
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 himself 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 . universities are responsible for their standards and the conduct of examinations.
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 assistance 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 something in the matter.
It cannot hold a detailed quasi-judicial inquiry with a right to its alumni to plead and lead evidence etc. before the results are withheld or the examinations cancelled. If
[I] £1962]
Supp. 3 S C.R. 36.
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BIHAR EXAM~ BOARD V. s. c. SINHA (Hidayatul/ah, C.l.)
969
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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 ascerB
taining whether they had received assistance or not.
To do this
would enco~rage indiscipline if not also perjury.
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We are satisfied that no principle of .natural justice was violated in !his case.
The Boarcj through its Chairman and later itself 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.