Upload final CUET answer key before result: Delhi HC to NTA

New Delhi: The Delhi High Court has directed the National Testing Agency (NTA) to ensure that the final answer key of CUET is uploaded on its portal at least a day before the declaration of the result.

The order was passed by Justice C Hari Shankar recently following an assurance to this effect by the Additional Solicitor General Chetan Sharma, appearing for the NTA.

The court was also told that any objections to the provisional answer key would also be undertaken by NTA only prior to the release of the final result.

The court, which was hearing a petition by a Central University Entrance Test (CUET) candidate challenging the declaration of the final results of a test held in 2022 without making the final answer key known, directed NTA to ensure that the 'assurances are scrupulously adhered to in future'.

The petitioner appeared in the CUET (UG) 2022 examination in August 2022 and the provisional answer keys were released by the NTA on September 8, 2022, with an option to challenge the same by paying a nominal fee.

It was stated by NTA that if the challenge raised by any candidate was found to be correct, the provisional answer key would be corrected and the result would be issued accordingly.

The petitioner then submitted his objections against certain answers proposed in the provisional answer key and on September 16, 2022, the final result of the 2022 CUET along with the final scores of the individual candidates was released by the NTA.

The petitioner approached the high court aggrieved by the fact that the NTA proceeded to release the final results without making the final answer key known to the candidates.

In the order, the court noted that even after the final results of the CUET had been declared, there was a second exercise of examination of the objections to the proposed answer key and sought NTA's explanation.

ASG Sharma submitted that the exercise of re-examination of the answer keys after the final results were declared may have been avoidable but was undertaken bonafidely, especially as a large number of objections were received even after the final result was declared.

He stated that a decision was taken to reconsider the objections in the interest of the students and the fact that the CUET was being conducted for the first time.

"However, the Court has been assured that in future, this would not happen and that any exercise of consideration of objections to the provisional answer key would be undertaken only prior to the final result of the examination of the CUET. The Court has also been assured that the final answer key would be uploaded on the website of the NTA at least a day prior to the final declaration of result, though it would be accessible only through the individual login ID and password of the candidate concerned," the court recorded.

"The Court is satisfied with the explanation. The NTA is directed to ensure that these assurances are scrupulously adhered to, in future," the court ordered.