E-Paper
Publish CUET answer key at least a day before declaring result: Delhi HC to NTA
NTA submitted that the exercise of re-examination of the answer keys after declaring the results may have been avoidable but was undertaken bonafide, as many objections were received even after the declaration of the results
The Delhi high court has directed the National Testing Agency (NTA) to adhere to its assurance of uploading the final answer key of the Common University Entrance Test (CUET) at least a day before the declaration of results.
The court was considering a plea filed by Aashish Gupta, who had appeared for the CUET UG exam in 2022, urging the court to direct the exam conducting body to publish the final answer keys of the CUET and to also consider the objections that he had raised in the provisional answer key and publish a corrected score card.
Gupta in his plea had contended that NTA proceeded with the results without making the final answer key known to the candidates. Though NTA on September 8, 2022, had issued a public notice inviting objections regarding its provisional answer key, it released the result on September 16, 2022, without releasing the final key.
To be sure, the court on April 26 on being informed that NTA had undertaken an exercise of examining the objections for the second time in October after declaring the results, expressed surprise and directed NTA to file an affidavit explaining as to how and why this had happened.
NTA, appearing through additional solicitor general Chetan Sharma, submitted that the exercise of re-examination of the answer keys after declaring the results may have been avoidable but was undertaken bonafide, as many objections were received even after the declaration of the results.
He added that the decision to reconsider the objections was undertaken as the exam was being conducted for the first time, adding that the magnitude of the exercise had persuaded NTA to adopt this approach. He, however, assured that NTA in future would undertake the exercise regarding consideration of objections to the final answer key prior to the final declaration of results.
“The court is satisfied with the explanation. NTA is directed to ensure that these assurances are scrupulously adhered to,” a bench of justice C Hari Shankar said in the January 19 order uploaded on the court’s website on Monday.
