Delhi HC: a candidate who skipped the objection window cannot attack the answer key after missing the cut-off

The Delhi High Court rejected a challenge to two questions in the Delhi Higher Judicial Service preliminary examination of July 2026, in a ruling that matters to anyone sitting a test with a published answer key. The candidate missed the cut-off by 0.25% and sought deletion of the questions and recalculation of marks. The candidate had not objected in the three days allowed after the model key was published on 28 July. Other candidates had objected to those two questions, and an expert committee rejected those objections while eleven other questions were deleted.

The petition came twenty-five days after the result of 14 August, close to the date then fixed for the mains. A Division Bench of Justices Avneesh Jhingan and Arun Bhardwaj called the candidate a "fence-sitter" and treated this as good ground to refuse writ relief. It also restated the limits on review: the mistake must be so glaring that no inference or reasoning is needed to show it, the question and answer are presumed correct, and in case of doubt the benefit goes to the examining body. The Court relied on the Supreme Court's 2026 decision in UP Subordinate Service Selection Commission v. Ashok Yadav and on Salil Maheshwari.

One disputed question concerned revocation of a posted offer, and the other a Will made while intoxicated; the Court did not substitute its view for the committee's on either. This is a Delhi High Court ruling, binding within Delhi, not a Supreme Court precedent.