The Delhi High Court has rejected a plea filed by an unsuccessful UPSC (Union Public Service Commission) aspirant against single-judge order dismissing his prayer seeking access to his answer sheets of all seven papers of the mains examination along with their model answers.
The plea was filed by an engineering graduate, who had appeared for the Civil Services (Preliminary) Examination in 2020 and cleared it, but was unsuccessful in the subsequent Mains Examination. It was rejected by a division bench of Justice Satish Chandra Sharma and Justice Subramonium Prasad.
The UPSC aspirant had sought disclosure his answer sheets and the model answers under the Right to Information (RTI) Act. His application was, however, earlier denied by the authorities, including the single judge.
The High Court bench while denying his request said that the answer sheets can only be disclosed if there is a public interest in doing so, which was not present in this particular case.
The bench also said that the issue of providing answer sheets to unsuccessful candidates in the Civil Services Examination had already been settled by the Supreme Court and can only be disclosed if there is a demonstrated public interest in their release, which was not shown by the appellant.
The court found no reason to interfere with the decision of the single judge and therefore dismissed the appeal.
“This court does not find any reason to interfere with the order of the learned single judge. Accordingly, the appeal is dismissed along with the pending applications, if any,” the court said.
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