Allahabad High Court Orders Equal Treatment of Two Defective UPTET Questions

The examination problem

The Allahabad High Court has directed the U.P. Education Service Selection Commission to exclude two defective questions from evaluation of the 2026 Uttar Pradesh Teacher Eligibility Test. The primary-level paper required candidates to select one correct answer for each multiple-choice item, but the final answer key accepted two options for Question Nos. 36 and 37 of the master set. The Commission had awarded marks to candidates who chose either accepted option. Justice Vinod Diwakar held that this treatment could not fairly resolve a question that the authority itself had found to admit more than one correct answer. The order requires the benefit of correction to be extended uniformly, not only to candidates who happened to pick one of those options.

Why the result mattered to the petitioners

Four candidates who took the primary-level examination on 3 July 2026 challenged their results. The final answer key and results were published on 26 August. Their normalised scores were approximately 80.4 to 81.4 against a qualifying mark of 82, leaving each short of eligibility. None had selected an option that the Commission later accepted for the two disputed questions. Their lawyers ultimately did not seek individual marks for their chosen answers. Instead, they asked the Court to remove the questions or to award equal credit across candidates. This narrower request focused on the structure of the examination, rather than trying to substitute a different answer key for the Commission's expert assessment.

The Commission’s position and the Court’s reasoning

The Commission argued that the petitioners had not objected to the provisional answer key and had chosen neither accepted option. It also contested the petitioners' reliance on an earlier UPTET ruling. The High Court considered the crucial point to be the Commission's own final determination that two options were correct. A candidate who was instructed to choose a single answer could not be fairly separated from another candidate by a question that no longer had the single correct response the paper promised. The Court relied on Supreme Court guidance permitting exclusion of a question when two answers could be right but only one was supposed to be selected. It also noted that the Commission had dropped Question No. 38 from this examination; treating Nos. 36 and 37 differently required a rational explanation.

The remedy ordered

The Court chose exclusion rather than selective allocation of marks. Under its direction, the primary paper is to be treated as comprising 148 questions. The qualifying standard must be calculated according to the prescribed percentages on that adjusted total. The Commission must recompute the petitioners' scores and correct their results. The consequential benefit must also reach all similarly placed candidates, including those who had selected neither of the two accepted options. This ensures that the remedy addresses the defective question itself instead of rewarding the chance selection of an answer on an ambiguous item. The order does not direct that every petitioner automatically pass; that depends on the recalculated score under the applicable qualifying standard.

What the decision does and does not establish

The ruling concerns a qualifying examination and two questions whose defects arose from the authority's own final key. It should not be read as inviting courts to revise every disputed academic answer. Its reasoning depends on the combination of a single-answer format and official acceptance of multiple answers. The petitioners' failure to object at an earlier stage did not remove the need for a fair method of evaluating an admitted defect. Equally, the Court did not promise a job to anyone whose revised mark reaches the eligibility threshold. It expressly clarified that the relief does not itself create a right to appointment or selection in a later recruitment exercise.

Practical implications for candidates and exam bodies

Candidates affected by the same paper should receive a consistent correction without having to depend on which of the accepted options they happened to mark. For examining authorities, the case underlines the importance of identifying defective questions in a final key and applying a remedy across the entire relevant candidate group. Where an authority has already excluded another question for the same underlying flaw, inconsistent treatment becomes especially difficult to justify. The corrected results may alter individual eligibility, but any future recruitment will still be governed by its own notices, vacancies and selection rules. The immediate duty is to recalculate the test results in accordance with the High Court's direction.