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BANGALORE: One of the best-kept secrets about the Common Admission Test (CAT) could soon be out. A RTI battle is now on between the Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs)and their famous alumnus over lifting the veil of secrecy on CAT solutions. Gautam Puri, an IIM-B alumnus and MD of Career Launcher, filed an application under the RTI Act seeking solutions to all questions of English section of CAT 2006 after being convinced that some answer keys published by IIMs were incorrect. CAT group, comprising chairpersons of all IIMs, refused to part with the information stating that all CAT-related documents, except question paper and answer keys are destroyed for security reasons. Following an appeal, the Central Information Commission (CIC), in the interest of transparency, directed IIMs to “provide a copy of guidelines, rules, regulations, bye-laws etc., for destroying the papers like minutes of discussion between the experts, consensus of experts” by August 10. Three months on, IIMs haven’t complied with the CIC orders.Puri, whose institute closely scrutinises the CAT papers every year, argues that though there are several instances where answer keys have been wrong but there is no provision to challenge them. “I have personally found cases where answer keys to subjective questions are incorrect, but IIMs refuse to give out the solutions,” he said. Puri said that if the “IIMs say that a particular option is the correct answer, they also ought to say why other options are incorrect”. “There are instances where the whole CAT coaching industry, if I may use that word, is on one side and the IIMs are on the other side over answer keys,” Puri told to this website’s newspaper. Following CIC’s orders, Subhashish Gupta, chairperson (admission), IIM-B declared in an affidavit on August 7: “It has been the standard practice to destroy any written material after the composition of the CAT for security reasons. No rough work or solutions of test items are retained. Only a computer file of the test and the answer key is retained. As far as I am aware and to the best of my knowledge this has been the standard practice ever since CAT has been administered. I have not been able to find any written record of this practice.” Puri now plans to move the CIC to direct IIMs to start maintaining the documents relating to CAT solutions. Under section 19(8)(a) of the RTI, the CIC has powers to direct a public authority to take steps to make “necessary changes to its practices in relation to the maintenance, management and destruction of records.”
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