delhi. The newly formed political party Swaraj India has expressed disappointment at the refusal by the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) to uphold high standards of transparency expected of this constitutional authority. It has extended support to the demand of a group of Civil Service aspirants to release the answer key immediately upon the completion of Preliminary Examination, as is the practice in some of the leading competitive examinations and among various state public service commissions.
Currently, the UPSC does not release the answer key for the Civil Service Preliminary Examination until all the three stages of the examination are completed, which effectively means that they release the answer keys after more than a year. By then, students have even finished writing the next year’s preliminary exam, thereby rendering the answer keys of the previous year’s exam irrelevant. Preliminary exam is of qualifying nature only and is thus a stand-alone exam to that extent. The marks of this stage has no effect whatsoever on the final merit of the UPSC Civil Services Examination. Clearly, holding up its answers or marks obtained by successful/unsuccessful candidates defies any rational basis.
It is particularly disappointing that despite a strict CIC ruling against this illogical practice of UPSC in the Mrunal case (File No: CIC/SM/answer 2012/001599), the commission continues to block any attempt to usher transparency.UPSC has claimed that “by divulging the information about the preliminary stage of examination before completion of the entire civil services examination (all three stages) could adversely affect the entire process on account of frivolous objections/representation from the unsuccessful candidates at the intermediary stage.”
This lack of transparency is significant, since many aspiring students have often asked troubling questions about the formulation of questions/answer keys. This year too, there have been many questions about the General Studies Paper-1 in the Civil Services (Prelims) Exam that had at least 4 ambiguous questions The UPSC has not bothered to acknowledge any goof-up in the exam let alone rectifying them or releasing any public clarifications thereof. The hapless students who have been wrongfully excluded are thereby left with no other option than to either suffer in silence or move the Court to seek justice.
Swaraj India National President Yogendra Yadav said, “Union Public Service Commission carries with it a mandate under Article 320(1) of the Constitution. Duty to conduct examinations, itself implies a duty to conduct them in a fair and transparent manner.”
Demanding a change in the culture of opacity at UPSC, party’s Chief National Spokesperson Anupam said, “If other State Public Service Commissions are releasing the answer keys before Mains examination and are inviting objections/challenges against the answer key, what stops UPSC from following the same procedure? Why does UPSC hold the attitude that every objection or representation against them is frivolous and not genuine?”
He said that Swaraj India will take up the issue of lack of transparency in UPSC exams if the commission or the ruling government fails to address the genuine concerns of student community.
