Directors of the six Indian Institute of Management have been asked by the Central Information Commission to consider disclosing marks scored by candidates appearing for the Common Admission Test.
"Why cannot the marks under each category of tests (in CAT) as well as the group of aspirants, general and others, be revealed," Information Commissioner M M Ansari sought to know in a recent order.
The Commission was hearing a Right to Information plea by Mumbai resident Sameer Arora who had sought from IIM, Ahmedabad, details of his exact number of attempted answers that matched with the correct answers in his 2005 CAT exam.
Arora's plea was turned down by the information officer of IIM-A, telling him that CAT was jointly conducted by all the six IIMs and no single institute had access to such information, which was confidential.
It also contended that unless all the IIMs agreed to such disclosures and suitable resources deployed to prevent tampering of Optical Mark Reader answer sheets used in CAT, the information sought could not be disclosed.
The Commission upheld the decision of the institute declining the information to Arora stating that IIM-A was not the sole custodian of the information that has been asked for.
In its order, the Commission observed that the conduct of CAT was reliable and there was no reason to distrust it.
"The conduct of competitive examination like CAT is a confidential activity and, therefore, utmost care is exercised to ensure fairness and objectivity in the process of examination/ selection tests," it said.
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