Disclose civil services prelims marks: HC to UPSC

The Delhi High Court has directed Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) to disclose the marks obtained by candidates in the civil services preliminary examination 2010. A bench of Acting Chief Justice A K Sikri and Justice Rajiv Sahai Endlaw gave the ruling, dismissing UPSC's appeal against a single judge order to disclose the marks, albeit only of successful candidates in the 2010 preliminary exam.
The bench directed for disclosure of marks of all candidates including unsuccessful ones. The bench asked UPSC to make public the marks within eight weeks, saying, "An examinee is entitled to satisfy himself/ herself as to the fairness and transparency of the examination and the selection procedure and to maintain such fairness and transparency disclosure of raw marks, cut-off marks and the scaling method adopted is a must.
"We are even otherwise of the view that there could be no secrecy or confidentiality about the method of scaling/actualisation adopted by an examiner. The very objective of the RTI Act is transparency and accountability. The counsel for the UPSC has been unable to show as to how the disclosure of the scaling/ actualisation method prejudices the examination or affects it competitiveness," the bench also said.
Referring to the Supreme Court's ruling that answer scripts and answer keys are liable for disclosure after the results of the examination are declared, the court said, "Be that as it may, though the non-disclosure of the method devised for scaling/ actualisation till declaration of the result may be justified, it cannot be said to be justified after the result is declared."
The bench has rejected the argument places by the counsel for the UPSC that raw marks are an intermediary stage and ought not to be treated as information and only after scaling/ actualisation can the marks scored be computed and UPSC is not liable to disclose such intermediary marks.
The order came also on a batch of petitions filed by civil service aspirants seeking direction to UPSC, which rejected their RTI application, to disclose them the details of marks (raw and scaled marks) obtained by the selected candidates in their respective optional subjects of the Civil Services Preliminary Examination, 2010.

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