The Hindu : New Delhi News : Delhi High Court questions UPSC

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Wednesday, Apr 18, 2007
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New Delhi

Delhi High Court questions UPSC

Nirnimesh Kumar

NEW DELHI: While directing the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) to provide the cut-off and the model answers to a group of Civil Services aspirants, the Delhi High Court has questioned the Commission's obduracy not to reveal the scaling methodology on the ground that it would undermine the entire examination system.

Dismissing the argument, Justice B. D. Ahmed said: "On examination of the scaling methodology filed by the Commission in a sealed cover in the Court, I am of the view that the methodology indicated therein is already known to the public because of the disclosure of the same by the UPSC itself in a counter-affidavit in the Supreme Court in another matter."

"There is nothing new that is mentioned in the contents of the sealed cover with regard to the methodology which is not mentioned in the counter-affidavit filed in the Apex Court," Mr. Justice Ahmed said.

The Commission had further argued before the High Court, without going into the specifics of any data, that if the information sought was revealed, a large number of dummy candidates would be pressed into service by some unscrupulous coaching institutes which would result in alteration of the scaled marks of certain specific papers and thereby deprive meritorious students in other papers from qualifying.

Dismissing the contention, Mr. Justice Ahmed said what the UPSC seemed to ignore was that the cut-off mark would itself change; and the scaling methodology adopted by them would take care of abnormalities caused by the dummy candidates, if any.

`Independent exams'

"The examination for each year is entirely independent of the examinations of other years; so the data of one year would have no bearing on the data of the next year," the 27-page judgment said.

With regard to the plea for disclosure of the model answers to the questions, the Court said though the UPSC might have some rights over them, the disclosure would be in the larger public interest.

"The candidates have the right to know where they went wrong; and one sure way of informing them in this regard is by disclosing the model answers," the judgment said.

The Court also dismissed the UPSC plea that if it revealed the scaling methodology it would violate its intellectual property right by observing that the information sought by the students did not fall within the expression of intellectual property right.

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