CSAT 2023| Supreme Court Dismisses Plea Alleging ‘Out Of Syllabus’ Questions In UPSC CSE Aptitude Test
The Supreme Court in a Special Leave Petition, has refused to interfere with an impugned order of the Delhi High Court and the Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT) where it had observed that what questions which needs to be included or what should be the nature and complexion of the questions in Civil Services Aptitude Test (CSAT), is a matter that necessarily remains in the exclusive domain of the panel of academic experts. It was further of the opinion that such a decision cannot be assailed before a Court in judicial review, only on the ground that some questions were out of syllabus.
In the matter, the grievance of the petitioners before the Tribunal was that General Studies Paper-II or the Civil Services Aptitude Test (CSAT), which forms one of the two papers in the preliminary examination contains a large number of questions, which were not in accordance with the syllabus notified for the said examination.
A bench of Justice A.S. Bopanna and Justice M.M. Sundresh heard the matter.
During the arguments, Senior Advocate Meenakshi Arora appearing for the petitioner, mentioned about a math question in the preliminary exam, which allegedly takes minimum 15 minutes to solve. On that Justice Sundresh made an interesting revelation, saying, “Telling you the main reason, why I didn’t get through is because of this. Because I am a history student”.
While pointing towards a question in the preliminary exam paper Arora said, that it will take at least 15-20 minutes by a candidate to solve that particular question and that in a preliminary exam of a certain time limitation, the same was not justified.
“It is a question of pure and simple permutation and combination. Milords, I had advanced mathematics in my school so, I could figure this out immediately that the questions are from calculus or from permutation or combination. Now, if one has not done that it would take at least 15-20 minutes to do something like this. That necessarily would not have been the object of the exam”, Arora argued.
To which Justice Bopanna remarked, “The test is not how you can do it, but how well you do it”.
“Somebody will be good at science, somebody will be good at math, somebody will be good at other subjects, it will be very difficult…”, Justice Sundresh added further.
Arora in her arguments had also put forth that previously, in similar situations UPSC has acknowledged this kind of anomaly, where the questions were out of the syllabus and resultantly marks were adjusted.
However, refusing to accept the same contention Justice Sundresh said that if such a statement is accepted then the UPSC will have to review it, postpone the mains and apply it to all candidates across, which will be really difficult.
“We are not going to seek cancellation of the entire examination, at least to the extent the questions are outside of the syllabus either they can be removed for everyone or everyone could be given a mark…or a re-examination. Because what the CAT and the High Court says that it cant go into it, that is completely correct”, said Arora in response.
In the present matter, the petitioners were Civil Service aspirants who had appeared in the Civil Services Examiniation2023 (CSE-2023) conducted by the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC).
The examination, conducted in three stages is yet to be concluded. The petitioners have participated only in the preliminary examination, which is the first stage.
It was also their case that the CSAT/Paper-II is only qualifying in nature, however, the implications are that only those candidates who qualify in this paper, are considered for position in the merit on the basis of the marks obtained in Paper-I.
It was further contended that the syllabus for the CSAT/Paper-II is supposed to be of Class X Level Arithmetic/ Mathematics, whereas a large number of questions asked in the said paper related to Commutation, Permutation and Combination, which is not a subject taught in Class X, and infact the questions generally were those put forth to evaluate the candidates for admission in higher engineering institutions like IITs, etc.
The paper being in contravention to the syllabus that has been notified, has severely impaired the prospects of the candidates to compete on their own merits in the Civil Services Examination without having to be subjected to discrimination, as students with humanities background would face unreasonable disadvantage
Accordingly, a bench of Justice V. Kameswar Rao and Justice Anoop Kumar Mendiratta of the High Court had observed, “It is not for this Court to examine or question the wisdom of the panel of experts that has prepared the question paper, and re-assess the relative merits of the questions. This Court cannot sit in appeal against the considered decision of such a panel of academic experts, unless such decision is demonstrated to be manifestly arbitrary, malafide or illegal. Such is not the case here”.
Consequentially, the Apex Court on not finding any reason to interfere with the impugned order, disposed of the matter.
Cause Title: Siddharth Mishra & Ors v. Union Public Service Commission & Ors
Click here to read/download the Order