The Delhi High Court has listed the matter for further hearing on July 26.
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The Delhi High Court on Monday asked the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) to submit its initial objections to a petition by some civil services aspirants seeking the answer key to this year’s preliminary examination.
In a petition filed through advocate Rajeev Kumar Dubey, 17 aspirants opposed a June press note by the UPSC Civil Services (Preliminary) Examination, 2023, stating that the answer key would be declared only after the declaration of the final results. This was in violation of the principles of natural justice, they argued.
The High Court posted the petition for further hearing on July 26. It also took on record that at this stage, the aspirants were not pressing some of their prayers, including quashing of the UPSC Civil Services (Preliminary) Examination, 2023, and re-conducting the preliminary test and General Studies Paper 1 and 2.
At the hearing, the UPSC counsel argued that the plea was not maintainable before the High Court and that the petitioners should approach the administrative tribunal for any relief. The counsel said the law does not permit the HC to adjudicate disputes pertaining to the process of civil services recruitment and the press note was also a part of that process.
“Let him (UPSC lawyer) file preliminary objections. I am only on the press note,” Justice Chandra Dhari Singh said.
The petition also claimed that the prelims exam was flooded with “vaguely worded” questions which were open to subjective interpretation. It said there were many questions with two possible answers, but the UPSC in its “own discretion decides one of them as a correct answer and mark the candidates accordingly”.
The petition added that the aspirants were aggrieved by the “arbitrariness” of the commission in the entire recruitment cycle.
“Not providing to the students the answer key of an exam they have appeared for, not considering the representations of the candidates despite a particular time window being provided for the same, and asking questions, which are disproportionately vague, testing candidates’ ability to answer only on the basis of guesswork, is not only arbitrary but defies all principles of fairness, logic and rationality,” it said.
The petition has said when a competitive exam is conducted, the answer key to the multiple choice questions is prepared in advance so it can be released right after paper has ended, thus giving candidates a fair idea of their performance.
However, the June 12 press note mentioned that “candidates are also informed that marks, cut off marks and answer keys of CS(P) Examination, 2023 will be uploaded on the Commission’s website i.e. https://upsc.gov.in only after the entire process of the Civil Services Examination 2023 is over, that is, after the declaration of final result”.
The petition has said almost all state public service commissions as well as other authorities like the High Court in respect of Delhi Judicial Service Examination, IITs, NLUs and IIMs release the provisional answer key within a week of the conduct of an examination and invite objections from the candidates.