The Delhi High Court has dismissed a petition challenging the structure and content of Paper I and Paper II of the Civil Services Examination (CSE) 2023, stating that courts cannot dictate how examination questions are framed unless they are demonstrably ambiguous or misleading.

A division bench of Justice C Hari Shankar and Justice Ajay Digpaul delivered the judgment in a plea filed by CSE aspirant Pranav Pandey. The Court upheld the Central Administrative Tribunal’s earlier dismissal of Pandey’s challenge to the preliminary papers, observing that judicial interference is warranted only in rare cases where there is palpable error.

The Bench stressed that the CSE is a large-scale competitive examination, taken by over six lakh candidates in 2023, and it is unrealistic to expect a uniform standard of aptitude or knowledge across all candidates.

“When a paper is set for such a large number of candidates, the level of difficulty may understandably be high. Some degree of discretion must be allowed to the paper setters,” the Court observed.

Pandey had raised objections to both Paper I (General Studies) and Paper II (CSAT). Regarding Paper I, he argued that certain questions lacked proper evaluative merit since even those who didn’t know the correct answer might still get it right by chance, rendering the question ineffective at assessing true knowledge.

The Court rejected this reasoning, noting that question-setters are entitled to structure questions requiring candidates to identify the number of correct options. It added that the possibility of correct guessing is not sufficient to invalidate such questions.

“If this argument is accepted, no multiple-option question could ever be set, which is an untenable proposition,” the Bench stated.

On Paper II, Pandey contended that the questions were taken from advanced-level textbooks or other competitive exams like the JEE, making them beyond the CSE syllabus. The Court disagreed, asserting that only in "glaringly" exceptional cases can a court determine that a question is outside the prescribed syllabus.

“Even if a question appears in higher-level textbooks or other exams, it does not automatically become out-of-syllabus. Unless it is blatantly outside the scope of the prescribed content, the Court must not interfere,” the judgment clarified.

Finally, the Bench held that once a candidate has raised concerns before the exam authorities and those concerns have been referred to experts who justify the answer key, the Court must defer to that expert view—unless it is manifestly erroneous.

“The Court’s jurisdiction is limited to cases where the suggested answer is undeniably incorrect or where multiple correct answers exist,” it added.

Case Title: Pranav Pandey v. Union Public Service Commission