Delhi High Court: In the petition filed by the petitioner regarding publication of final result by the National Testing Agency (‘NTA’), before releasing the final answer key, C. Hari Shankar*, opined that it had been assured by the NTA, that in future, this would not happen and any exercise of consideration of objections to the provisional answer key would be undertaken only prior to the final result of the examination of the CUET. The Court had also been assured that the final answer key would be uploaded on the website of the NTA at least a day prior to the final declaration of result, though it would be accessible only through the individual login ID and password of the candidate concerned. The Court directed the NTA to ensure that, in future, these assurances were scrupulously adhered to.
In the instant case, the two petitions involved a common issue, therefore for the purpose of adjudication, the two applications were taken up together for adjudication.
The petitioner appeared for his Class 12th examination in 2021-2022, and in 2022, as part of the New Education Policy, the Department of Higher Education, Ministry of Education, Union of India, decided to centralize undergraduate admissions to all Central Universities, through a Central University Entrance Test/CUET (UG). Subsequently, first such test was the CUET (UG), for which applications were invited vide public notice dated 26-03-2022, issued by the NTA.
The petitioner appeared in CUET (UG) 2022 examination (‘2022 CUET’) on 18-08-2022 and 30-08-2022 and the provisional answer keys were released by the NTA on 08-09-2022. On the same day, NTA issued a public notice to challenge the provisional answer key by paying a nominal fee, and if the challenge raised by any candidate was correct, the provisional answer key would be corrected and accordingly, the final key would be issued.
The petitioner submitted the objections against the answers proposed in the provisional answer key and on 15-09-2022, a second public notice was issued by the NTA, wherein it was stated that the challenges to the provisional answer key had been placed before the subject experts concerned and the answer key had been finalized. Thereafter, on 16-09-2022, the final result of the 2022 CUET, along with the final scores of the individual candidates was released by the NTA.
Since, the NTA proceeded to release the final results without making the final answer key known to the candidates, the petitioner filed the first writ petition, that NTA should be directed to publish the final answer keys of 2022 CUET.
On 06-10-2022, the present Court was apprised that the subject-wise answer key was available for viewing on the website and the challenge by the petitioner in respect of two questions had been accepted, which resulted in updating of the petitioner’s score. The Court noted that of the eleven answers challenged by the petitioner in the provisional answer key, the acceptance was in respect of four answers, of which two were accepted prior to the release of final result and two were accepted, after the petitioner filed the writ petition.
Thereafter, the petitioner filed the second writ petition, wherein the petitioner sought that the objections raised by the petitioner in respect of the remaining questions, and not accepted by the NTA should also be considered and the corrected score card of the petitioner to be published. The Court, vide its order dated 26-04-2023, found it surprising that after the final result was declared on 16-09-2022, there was a second exercise of examination of the objections to the proposed answer key.
Therefore, the NTA was directed to file a specific affidavit explaining how and why this happened. It was submitted by the NTA, that the the exercise of re-examination of the answer keys after the final results were declared might have been avoidable, but was undertaken bona fide, especially as a large number of objections were received even after the final result was declared. It was further submitted that in the interest of the students, a decision was taken to reconsider the objections, and the fact that the CUET was being conducted for the first time, and the magnitude of the exercise, had persuaded the NTA to adopt this approach.
The Court opined that it had been assured by the NTA that in future, this would not happen and any exercise of consideration of objections to the provisional answer key would be undertaken only prior to the final result of the examination of the CUET. The Court had also been assured that the final answer key would be uploaded on the website of the NTA at least a day prior to the final declaration of result, though it would be accessible only through the individual login ID and password of the candidate concerned. The Court opined that it was satisfied with the explanation and directed the NTA to ensure that these assurances were scrupulously adhered to, in future.
[Aashish Gupta v. Union of India, 2024 SCC OnLine Del 393, decided on 19-01-2024]
*Judgment authored by- Justice C. Hari Shankar
Advocates who appeared in this case :
For the Petitioner: Nidhi Gupta, Advocate;
For the Respondents: Chetan Sharma, ASG with Sanjay Khanna, Standing Counsel, Apoorv Kurup, Standing Counsel, CGSC, Pragya Bhushan, Karandeep Singh, Tarandeep Singh, Amit Singh, Vikramaditya Singh, Saurabh Tripathi, Navya Goel and Muskaan Gupta, Advocates
