Consider plea for extra UPSC attempt: SC to govt

The Supreme Court on Wednesday asked the Centre to rethink its stance and reply in two weeks on giving an extra chance to students who failed to appear in the civil services (mains), 2021 examination -- conducted early this year -- because they had tested positive for Covid-19.

The decision came after the court was informed that a parliamentary standing committee had on March 24 recommended to the government an extra attempt as a general rule for all civil service aspirants due to the hardship caused by the Covid pandemic.

Referring to the 112th report of the standing committee on department of personnel and training, the bench of justices AM Khanwilkar, AS Oka and CT Ravikumar said, “In the light of the recommendation of the Parliamentary committee, we dispose this petition with a direction to the appropriate authority to re-examine the request of the petitioners and take appropriate decision in two weeks.” The order came on a petition by three civil service aspirants who contracted Covid-19 and couldn’t sit for the Mains examination, held from January 7-16.

The SOP issued by the Centre required them to isolate and not attend the examination, but the Centre and the union public service commission (UPSC) rejected their demand for an extra chance fearing similar demands from other categories of students and in other central examinations.

The petitioners, Arjit Shukla, Kartikeya Sharma and Shubham Jain, represented by senior advocate Gopal Shankarnaraynan, along with intervenors represented by advocate Prashant Bhushan, pointed out that the Centre had power to relax the number of attempts for giving the civil service examinations.