DU: Pay Rs 750 to get answer sheets

Retrieving your answer sheet out of Delhi University's (DU) vault will now burn a hole in your pocket.

Retrieving your answer sheet out of Delhi University's (DU) vault will now burn a hole in your pocket.

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With DU drafting its own policy on disclosure of answer sheets - despite the Supreme Court's judgment - a student will now have to shell out Rs 750 to get a copy of the answer script.

An order by the Central Information Commission (CIC) states that a student can invoke Section 7 of the RTI Act, following which DU will be obliged to provide a copy of the answer script upon payment of Rs 2 per page along with Rs 10 as RTI application fee.

However, DU has come out with a disclosure statement of its own, which requires the student to pay R750 for submission of application for copy of an evaluated answer script.

"This has been done to discourage students from asking for the answer sheets. The examination fee is Rs 200 per paper, under which DU conducts exams, gets the answer sheets verified, declares results and provides mark sheets. So, there is no justification for charging Rs 750 per paper only for providing a photocopy of the answer sheet," said Ajay Goel, an RTI activist and a student of DU's Law Faculty.

DU, however, has defended the fee that it charges, claiming that it will help weed out fake cases from the genuine ones.

"Every year, there are a lot of students who believe that they should get more marks than they have got. So, when you ask for one answer script to be shown, it becomes a very cumbersome process. This will just lead to unnecessary trouble and confusion," said Gulshan Sawhney, deputy dean of students' welfare.