The Supreme Court on Saturday dismissed a petition seeking direction to postpone civil services preliminary examination slated for August 24, saying candidates’ objection to inclusion of English comprehension section has already been addressed.
The court also refused to put off the exam at the last hour when nine lakh students were ready to appear. A bench of justices J S Khehar and Arun Mishra held a special hearing on a non-working day on a plea made by 31-year-old Agnesh Kumar seeking a stay on the UPSC examination.
The court pointed out that the UPSC had already taken a decision to allow candidates to skip the English Comprehension section following protests against its inclusion. Advocates Ravindra S Garia and Vishal Sinha, appearing for the UPSC aspirant, submitted that the present pattern was already skewed against the students from non-urban background (deficient in English language skills) as well as from Humanities and non-Engineering/Science/Management streams.
(Published 23 August 2014, 20:22 IST)