Today, the Supreme Court has granted permission for the withdrawal of a petition that sought publication of the answer key and cutoff marks for the UPSC Civil Services Preliminary Examination 2023.

This decision has been made considering that simillar issue is currently being reviewed by the Delhi High Court. The Delhi High Court had postponed its judgment on this matter on August 2, 2023.

The bench comprising Justices Hrishikesh Roy and Justice Sanjay Karol was hearing a plea seeking disclosure of answer key and cutoff marks in the interest of transparency and fairness.

Advocate Mr. Saurav Agarwal, who represented the petitioner, highlighted the challenges faced by students due to the uncertainties regarding the availability of the answer key and cutoff marks for the UPSC CSE Prelims 2023. He stressed that the Delhi High Court had solely deferred making a decision on the matter's legitimacy.

Earlier, Delhi High Court had reserved the verdict regarding the "maintainability" of a petition that contested a press release issued by the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) on June 12.

The press release indicated that the answer key for the preliminary examination of the Civil Services Examination 2023 would only be made available once the entire examination process is done.

The petition in question, filed by 17 prospective civil servants, requested a court order directing the UPSC to promptly release the answer key for the preliminary examination.

The petitioner made it clear that they were no longer seeking the cancellation of the UPSC Civil Services Preliminary Examination 2023 and a re-conduct of the exam.

The petitioners' plea raised various issues concerning the examination's administration, such as the absence of answer keys for candidates who had taken the exam, the failure to address candidates' representations within a specified timeframe, and the creation of questions that were excessively ambiguous.

Case Title: Aditi Trivedi v. UPSC