New Delhi, March 31
The Supreme Court on Thursday asked the Centre to consider the demand of some civil services aspirants, who could not appear in the UPSC civil services main examination after being infected with Covid-19 and are now seeking an additional chance in light of the recommendation made in a recent parliamentary committee report.
The panel is said to have recommended that in view of the hardships faced by students during the first and second waves of Covid-19, the government should change its mind and sympathetically consider the demand of civil services aspirants and grant an extra attempt with corresponding age relaxation to all candidates.
As advocate Prashant Bhushan, representing an intervenor, talked about the parliamentary committee report, a Bench led by Justice AM Khanwilkar asked, “Has the government considered this (committee report) before taking the decision.”
Additional Solicitor General Aishwarya Bhati said she didn’t have instructions on this. “You may consider it in light of this recommendation,” the Bench said, adding it’s open to the government to change its mind.
The Centre had last week opposed additional chance to civil services aspirants, saying it was “not possible”. The Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) too had opposed the demand for granting an extra chance to Covid19-hit civil services aspirants, saying there’s no provision for holding re-examination in case a candidate fails to appear in the exam on the scheduled date for any reasons, including ailment or accident.
Three Civil Services aspirants—who couldn’t write the UPSC 2021 Mains Examination due to Covid19 infection –are seeking directions to the UPSC for an extra chance. Petitioners Arjit Shukla and other candidates had cleared the UPSC 2021 Prelims Examination but could not appear in many of the papers of the Mains Examination held last month after testing Covid-19 positive.
They have sought a direction to the UPSC to give them an additional attempt to appear in the Civil Services Exam or allow them to appear in the papers they could not write, before the publication of final results. One of them could not appear in any of the papers due to Covid-19 infection.
The petitioners – who submitted their RTPCR test reports – contended that they couldn’t write the UPSC Mains Examination due to the restrictions imposed under the strict quarantine guidelines for Covid-19.
Contending that the UPSC didn’t have any policy regarding making alternative arrangements for such Covid19 positive candidates positive for Mains Examination, they said it violated their rights.
