The Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) has conveyed to the Supreme Court its decision to release provisional answer keys after the civil services preliminary examination.
The decision, conveyed to the apex court in an affidavit, signalled a move away from the earlier practice of publishing keys only after the year-long recruitment cycle.
The affidavit, filed in a petition by Himanshu Kumar, represented by senior advocate Devadatt Kamat and advocates Rajesh G. Inamdar and Shashwat Anand, informed the court that the provisional keys would be released after the prelims to facilitate candidates to raise representations or objections, which would be placed before a team of subject experts who would conduct an in-depth consideration and finalise the answer keys. The final answer key would naturally be released after the publication of the final results, UPSC said.
The petitioner’s counsel however responded that the affidavit did not clarify the redressal measures for candidates who appeared in the CSE 2025 Prelims in May 2025, where no provisional keys were provided, leaving aspirants uncertain about retrospective remedies like re-evaluation or objection windows.
This development followed an earlier petition filed on August 11, 2025, when 28 civil services aspirants approached the Supreme Court against the UPSC’s “opaque” answer key policy for the 2025 civil services prelims.
