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The Calcutta High Court on Friday ordered that candidates who appeared for the West Bengal Teacher Eligibility Test (TET) in 2014 should be shown their respective answer sheets and Optical Mark Recognition (OMR) sheets.

The order was passed by Justice Amrita Sinha during the hearing of a case in which several candidates made a demand in this regard, citing “doubts” over the results. Shantanu Sit, one of the candidates who took the exam that year, had approached the Court, flagging “doubts” over the TET 2014 results. He demanded that the OMR sheet or answer sheet should be shown. As many as 27 other candidates also made the same demand in the Court. They claimed that the OMR sheets would make it clear what the exact score of each candidate was.

In December last year, the High Court had, after examining the documents of Shantanu Sit and others, directed the West Bengal Board of Primary Education (Board) to conduct interviews. However, the board claimed that they did not pass the written test (TET). The candidates’ demand that the OMR sheet or answer sheet be shown to them was rejected by the board, which pointed out that this was against the rules. They subsequently approached the High Court.

The Board submitted that the OMR sheets (digitized data) shall be supplied to the petitioners immediately upon verification and scrutiny of the documents submitted by them before the Board. It has been submitted that the process will take some time and immediately after the scrutiny is over 2 the data shall be forwarded to the petitioners upon payment of necessary charges.

Thus, the Court disposed off the petition noting, "in view of the above, no further order is required to be passed in the instant writ petition. The Board shall take immediate steps for supplying the data as sought for by the petitioners."

Cause Title: Santanu Sit & Ors. vs The State of West Bengal & Ors.