Judicial review of customs broker examinations requires patent, demonstrable error; past question patterns and difficulty alone do not justify intervention.
Customs Brokers Licensing Regulations permit examination questions on Allied Acts and other laws relevant to EXIM trade and customs clearance, without imposing a numerical allocation between major and Allied Acts. Earlier examination patterns do not bind the expert examining authority. Judicial review of competitive examinations is limited to patent illegality, mala fides, arbitrariness, or manifest error. An expert-verified answer key is presumed correct unless a glaring error is apparent without inferential reasoning; drafting concerns, disputed interpretation, or difficulty do not establish such a defect. Licences or additional attempts do not follow absent a demonstrated patent defect.
Issues: (i) Whether the 2025 Customs Brokers Licensing Examination was invalid because 65 of 150 questions concerned Allied Acts, allegedly departing from past examination patterns; (ii) Whether the alleged out-of-syllabus, ambiguous, or difficult questions and answer-key errors warranted judicial interference, licences, or additional examination attempts.
Issue (i): Whether the 2025 Customs Brokers Licensing Examination was invalid because 65 of 150 questions concerned Allied Acts, allegedly departing from past examination patterns.
Analysis: Regulation 6(7) of the Customs Brokers Licensing Regulations, 2018 expressly permits questions on Allied Acts and other laws relevant to EXIM trade and customs clearance. The Regulation prescribes no numerical ratio or ceiling for questions from major Acts and Allied Acts. A pattern followed in earlier examinations does not create a binding restriction upon the expert examining authority.
Conclusion: The proportion of questions from Allied Acts did not invalidate the examination. The issue was decided against the petitioners.
Issue (ii): Whether the alleged out-of-syllabus, ambiguous, or difficult questions and answer-key errors warranted judicial interference, licences, or additional examination attempts.
Analysis: Judicial review under Article 226 of the Constitution of India is confined to patent illegality, mala fides, arbitrariness, or manifest error in the examination process. The expert-verified answer key carries a presumption of correctness, rebuttable only by a glaring error apparent without inferential reasoning. The objections disclosed, at most, questions of drafting precision, interpretation, or difficulty; they did not establish a facially demonstrable error in the answers or a departure from the notified syllabus. The framing, standard, and assessment of examination questions remain within the domain of subject experts.
Conclusion: No patent defect in the questions or answer key was established, and no entitlement to licences or additional attempts arose. The issue was decided against the petitioners.
Final Conclusion: The examination and its expert evaluation remain undisturbed, as the writ jurisdiction cannot be used to reassess academic choices absent a patent and demonstrable defect.
Ratio Decidendi: In competitive examinations, an expert-approved question paper and answer key may be displaced in judicial review only upon a patent, facially demonstrable error or arbitrariness; an unstipulated departure from past question patterns or mere difficulty is insufficient.