Four Days to Clarity: Why UPSC’s Answer Key Delay Fails Aspirants

As aspirants attempted their preliminary exam on 25th May, they will have to wait another year to know their mistakes.

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Four days. That’s all we had to learn what went wrong, if at all, in an exam that determines the fate of over 10 lakh aspirants every year. The UPSC released the 2024 Prelims answer key just four days before the 2025 Prelims exam — a move that felt less like an administrative decision and more like a blow to the spirit of transparency.

As aspirants attempted their preliminary exam on 25th May, they will have to wait another year to know their mistakes. For students who have spent years dissecting every question, seeking clarity, and battling anxiety over cutoffs and mistakes, last-minute disclosure of the answer key feels performative. The answer key is meant to help students assess their performance, understand the Commission’s rationale, and prepare better. What is the point of releasing it 96 hours before the next battle begins?

Yes, the UPSC in 2013 has defended its delay in releasing the answer key by filing a writ petition in the Delhi High Court, challenging the Central Information Commissioner’s directive. The Commission filed that “there is no larger public interest involved in insisting on disclosure of the answer keys when the examination process is not yet over.” It further submitted that releasing this information prematurely — before the completion of all three stages of the Civil Services Examination — could "adversely affect the entire examination process" due to potential frivolous objections from unsuccessful candidates at this intermediary stage.

But isn’t this argument fundamentally flawed? In its attempt to preempt hypothetical disruptions, the Commission appears to be prioritizing administrative convenience over transparency and accountability. This is less about protecting the sanctity of the process and more about shielding itself from scrutiny — a textbook case of bureaucratic recalcitrance dressed up as caution.

In March 2025, a Parliamentary Standing Committee suggested the release of answer key by the UPSC immediately after the preliminary examination to enhance credibility, fairness, and candidates' confidence. The committee clearly understood what the Commission still resists — that transparency builds trust. Silence breeds resentment.

To make matters worse, three questions have simply been discarded. No reasoning. No explanation. These aren’t open-ended queries — they’re factual. And this, from an institution that expects India’s future administrators to operate with logic, fairness, and accountability.

Most galling is the idea that one cannot even grieve in the system. For a generation of aspirants who study policy, law, international relations, and ethics, the Commission’s opacity feels ironic. How do we talk about governance and accountability when the very body evaluating us refuses to practice it?

This is not just about a few questions. It’s about an institutional culture that refuses to engage, explain, or evolve. Releasing the key so close to the next exam is a mockery. The discarded questions without rationale speak of casual indifference. And the unwillingness to accept or correct errors reflects an arrogance unbecoming of a constitutional body.

To those of us who prepare year after year with discipline and faith in the system, this feels like betrayal — quiet, bureaucratic, and cold.

UPSC is not just a gatekeeper to jobs. It shapes what we value in public life — clarity, fairness, merit. If it forgets that, what hope do we carry into the exam hall?

The author is a UPSC aspirant and has attempted the civil services examination thrice.