The Gujarat High Court has directed the Gujarat Public Service Commission to restore a deducted mark to a candidate in the Sales Tax Inspector examination after ruling that the official answer key relied on unauthenticated reference material downloaded from an unknown internet source.
Justice Nirzar Desai struck down the commission’s answer key for the 2024 preliminary test and refused to grant a four-week stay requested by the examining body. The court ordered the commission to evaluate candidate Arati Rangpariya for placement on the select or waiting list as if she had cleared the preliminary stage.
Court Orders Selection Consideration
The ruling applies exclusively to Rangpariya, who was the sole litigant among a group of petitioners to pursue the case after results were declared. She also separately cleared the main examination while legal proceedings were ongoing.
Rangpariya appeared for the Class III Sales Tax Inspector preliminary examination on December 22, 2024, answering Question Paper Series B. Sitting in the Economically Weaker Section category, she received 94.36 marks, falling 1.23 marks short of the 95.59 cut-off required to qualify for the main examination.
Dispute Over Exam Question
The legal challenge centered on Question 147, which contained two statements regarding Kautilya’s Arthashastra: first, that it was written in Sanskrit, and second, that it was a book on economics.
The commission’s final answer key accepted only the first statement as correct. Rangpariya submitted that both statements were accurate and selected Option C on her answer sheet.
During eight hearings conducted between March and July 2026, the court examined how the question was framed. The paper-setter admitted to using a downloaded PDF from an unidentified online source and acknowledged that an original physical edition was unavailable. The commission subsequently conceded in an affidavit that it maintains no written guidelines to authenticate reference materials used by paper-setters or candidates.
Lack Of Source Authentication Policy
Representing the petitioner, Senior Advocate Megha Jani pointed out that the commission’s court submissions cited commercial websites such as Amazon and Slideshare to locate a 1915 translation by R. Shamasastry. She noted that the pages submitted to the court lacked verifiable publisher names or dates.
Government Pleader G. H. Virk argued that judicial restraint should be exercised when reviewing expert-vetted answer keys and that any ambiguity should favor the examining authority. The commission contended that although the Arthashastra addresses economic subjects, expert consensus views it primarily as a treatise on governance and political administration.
State Textbooks Versus Online Translation
The petitioner countered that standard educational materials—including Class 11 economics textbooks published by the Gujarat State Board, the Gujarat Council of Educational Research and Training, and the National Council of Educational Research and Training—explicitly highlight Kautilya’s economic theory and categorize the Arthashastra accordingly.
In the judgment, Justice Desai noted that the original text of the Arthashastra describes itself as a compendium spanning 15 books on various subjects. The court ruled that in general-awareness examinations, any ambiguity stemming from unverified internet downloads must be resolved in favor of examinees rather than the testing agency.
