Civil Services Exam 2023: Delhi High Court Admits Plea Seeking Publication Of Prelims Answer Key

The Delhi High Court on Wednesday admitted the plea challenging the decision of Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) to publish the answer key of the preliminary examination of Civil Services Examination 2023 only after declaration of final result.

Justice Chandra Dhari Singh pronounced the judgment on maintainability of the plea which has been moved by 17 civil services aspirants seeking publication of answer key before the entire process is completed. The court had reserved the verdict on August 02.

The court observed that merely asking for publishing of the answer key does not amount to interference in the process of recruitment and thus, there is no hurdle in admitting the plea.

Justice Singh said that further order will be passed on merits after hearing the parties and listed the matter for hearing on September 26.

The court observed that the prayer requesting for disclosure of the answer key would entail adjudication of fundamental rights and legal rights of the candidates and that where such enforcement of rights is sought, the court cannot look the other way.

Justice Singh noted that the plea has been moved by disqualified candidates who neither challenged their disqualification, nor the examination process and were merely requesting that the answer key be published before the entire process is completed.

”Such a prayer cannot be said to per se leading to a dispute with respect to recruitment under Article 323A of the Constitution of India or under the Administrative Tribunals Act, 1985. Once it is held that it does not fall within the ambit of a “dispute or complaint with respect to recruitment”, it cannot be said that the Tribunal has the exclusive jurisdiction to entertain the said dispute,” the court said.

The court however clarified that the remarks made in the order will not impact any other proceedings pending before any other court. 

“This Court is of the opinion that the instant petition is a fit case for adjudicating the said question that was raised in the above said writ petition, as to whether the UPSC can be directed to release the answer key, since the same does not fall within the scope of „recruitments‟ as set forth under the Act,” the court said.

The plea filed through Advocate Rajeev Kumar Dubey was moved by 17 civil services aspirants. They have challenged the press note released by the UPSC on June 12 as per which the answer key of prelims will be published only after the entire process is over.

Aspirants contend that such decision is arbitrary.

On the other hand, UPSC raised a preliminary objection on the maintainability of the petition by contending that the impugned press note is also a part of the recruitment and thus, the High Court does not have the jurisdiction to entertain the petition.

It was further submitted that the aspirants have the original remedy of approaching Central Administrative Tribunal.

“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,” the plea reads.

Earlier, the court had dismissed an application moved in the plea by the aspirants challenging the Detailed Application Form (DAF) issued by UPSC on July 10 inviting applications for Civil Services (Main) Examination 2023.

Recently, a division bench dismissed a plea challenging the order of CAT which refused to order reduction in cut off for Civil Services Aptitude Test (CSAT) 2023 from 33% to 23%.

Case Title: Himanshu Kumar v. UPSC & Anr.

Citation: 2023 LiveLaw (Del) 822

Click Here To Read Order