The Delhi High Court in the case Aashish Gupta vs. Union Of India And Anr observed and has assured the National Testing Agency, NTA that in future, the final answer key for Central University Entrance Test, CUET-UG exam would be uploaded on its website at least a day prior to the final declaration of result.
The bench headed by Justice C Hari Shankar in the case observed and has given the assurance that the final answer key would be accessible only through the individual login ID and password of the candidate concerned.
It has also been assured by the said court that any exercise of consideration of objections to the provisional answer key would be undertaken only prior to the final result of the CUET examination.
The court stated that the said court is satisfied with the explanation. Thus, the court directed the NTA to ensure that these assurances are scrupulously adhered to, in future.
The bench of Justice Shankar in the case was dealing with the petition filed by the candidate who appeared in in CUET (UG) 2022 examination wherein it seeks direction on NTA to publish the final answer key and to reconsider the objections raised by him regarding two questions and a corrected score card be published.
The counsel, ASG Chetan Sharma appearing for NTA submitted before the court that the re-examination of the answer keys after the final results were declared may have been avoidable but was undertaken bonafide, especially as a large number of objections were received even after the final result was declared.
Further, it has been submitted before the court that in the interest of the students, a decision was taken to reconsider the objections.
The court noted that 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.
On the other hand, the counsel appearing for the candidate did not press the prayer for fresh consideration of remaining objections to the provisional answer key.
In the present case, the candidate had moved an application seeking to amend the plea for a thorough investigation in the manner in which there was a re-examination of the answer keys and for summoning the records pertaining to normalization of scores of the CUET.
The court stated that this court is not inclined at this point of time to direct any such investigation as it would lead to needless controversy and it does not appear that the NTA has, in acting as it did, not been bona fide. Thus, the substantive prayer in WP (C) 13617/2022, which was for making known the final answer key, stands satisfied.
The counsel, Advocate Ms. Nidhi Gupta appeared for the Petitioner.
The counsel, Advocates Mr. Chetan Sharma, learned ASG with Mr. Sanjay Khanna, Standing Counsel, NTA, Mr. Apoorv Kurup, Standing Counsel, CGSC, Ms. Pragya Bhushan, Mr. Karandeep Singh, Mr. Tarandeep Singh, Mr. Amit Singh, Mr. Vikramaditya Singh, Mr. Saurabh Tripathi, Ms. Navya Goel and Ms. Muskaan Gupta represented the respondent.