With only 12 points this hand is too weak to respond with 2NT. But East still should avoid raising Opener's diamonds. East should respond with 2♣. (This is called bidding a "false suit")
East has only 3 cards in the suit but it includes two good stoppers.
This keeps the hope alive of reaching a NT contract and conveys to West "Partner I have 11+ points and the clubs stopped. Does this help you to bid NT ?"
And of course it does and West (with 15½ pts) should have no hesitation to bid 3NT.
But what happens, you might ask, if West has a very different (probably unbalanced) hand and raises East's (false) ♣ suit instead ? Then East will simply raise Opener's first suit to 3♦, and no harm is done.
PS
Experienced East players will, even with the earlier stronger hand (with 13+ pts) from this quiz prefer to bid 2♣ instead of 2NT.
East : ♠J 4
♥ K 8 6
♦ K Q 10 9 2
♣ K Q 4
By reponding 2♣ instead of 2NT East (with an otherwise strong hand) is alerting Partner he has weakness in one (or both) of the major suits.
If West has strength in only one of the majors he will bid that major suit. If West has stoppers in both majors he will bid (as in this case) NT.
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