Plea Says Two UPSC Answer Key Questions Had No Right Option

Eight questions from the UPSC answer key for this year's civil services preliminary exam are now in front of a tribunal, and the timing could not be tighter. The Central Administrative Tribunal has issued a notice to the Union Public Service Commission over the disputed items, according to reports in The New Indian Express and India TV News, with the notice coming on 19 August. The Mains examination starts on 21 August.

The plea was filed by candidate Sachin Tiwari along with two others, represented by advocate Shantanu Jugtawat. They have challenged questions 7, 11, 45, 60, 62, 82, 86 and 96 of General Studies Paper-I, Set A. Their argument splits into two halves. Six of the answers, they say, run against the source material an aspirant would reasonably rely on. For the other two, they claim not one of the four printed options is factually correct.

The figure the applicants have put before the tribunal is 16 marks and above — enough, they argue, to move the qualifying cut-off and change who made it through. The next hearing is listed for 8 October, which lands nearly six weeks after the final Mains paper on 30 August. In other words, the candidates who filed this case will write the Mains long before anyone rules on whether they were marked fairly.

What exactly is being challenged

Question numbers here refer to Set A only. UPSC prints the paper in multiple shuffled sets, so a candidate holding Set B or Set C will find the same eight questions sitting at completely different numbers. That matters if you are trying to cross-check against your own booklet — match the wording, not the numbering.

The relief sought is narrower than a re-scoring demand. The applicants want UPSC directed to disclose how it processes objections to the key: what method the expert committee applies, and whether these specific questions were accepted for correction or thrown out. That is a transparency ask, and it is a shrewder one than asking a tribunal to declare the right answer itself.

Why 16 marks can decide an entire attempt

General Studies Paper-I carries 100 questions worth two marks each, for 200 marks. Eight questions is 16 marks of face value. But the paper also docks one-third of a mark for every wrong answer, so a candidate who attempted all eight and was marked wrong under the current key loses roughly another five. The realistic swing is close to 21 marks.

Put that against the arithmetic of the exam. UPSC declared the prelims result on 15 June and shortlisted 13,343 candidates against 933 advertised vacancies — about one post for every 14 people still in the race. The cut-off is set on Paper-I alone, since CSAT only has to be cleared at 33 per cent. At the margin, a few marks separate hundreds of aspirants. Twenty-one is not a rounding error.

How the UPSC answer key process changed this year

This is the first cycle in which the Commission has moved fast on the key, and that shift is part of why the dispute is happening in August rather than years from now.

A provisional key three days after the exam

The prelims were held on 24 May. The provisional answer key went up on 27 May — a first for the Commission, which for years published nothing until the whole examination cycle had ended. Aspirants had asked for exactly this after the 2023 round, when coaching institutes and the official key openly diverged and candidates had no formal way to argue the point.

Seven days, three sources per objection

Objections had to be filed through the QPRep portal on the UPSC online site, and the window shut at 6 pm on 31 May. Each challenge needed the candidate's own proposed answer, a short explanation, and evidence from up to three authentic sources. Email and post were not accepted. That short, evidence-bound window is now the paper trail this case rests on.

The final key still comes last

Here is the catch. A subject-expert committee reviews the representations, but the final key is published only after the final Civil Services result. So a candidate can object, get no reply, miss the cut-off by three marks, and never learn whether the objection was upheld. That gap is precisely what the plea is aimed at.

Why tribunals rarely rewrite a key

The legal odds are steep, and aspirants should know that before they read too much into a notice. In Ran Vijay Singh versus State of Uttar Pradesh, decided by the Supreme Court in December 2017, the court held that the burden on a candidate challenging a key answer is heavy and that constitutional courts must be extremely cautious about entertaining such pleas. Interference is reserved for rare cases where a material error is demonstrated beyond doubt. A notice to UPSC is simply a direction to respond, not a finding that the key is wrong.

What to watch before 8 October

Two things decide how far this goes. First, whether UPSC files a substantive reply explaining its objection-handling method, or stands on the settled position that expert committees are not reviewable. Second, whether the tribunal issues any interim direction — historically, results in such cases are allowed to proceed subject to the outcome, which keeps the process moving without freezing 13,343 careers.

If you are writing the Mains this week, treat the case as background noise and nothing more. Sit the papers. But do save your QPRep submission receipts, your question booklet set letter and your rough marks estimate, because if any correction is eventually ordered, those records are what will place you inside or outside the revised list. Watch the 8 October listing, and watch whether UPSC's reply says anything at all about the eight questions.