Supreme Court to consider plea for deferring Civil Services preliminary exams

The Supreme Court on Thursday decided to consider a plea for a direction to the UPSC to postpone Civil Services (Preliminary) examinations, scheduled to be held on October 4, in view of alarming rise of Covid-19 cases, besides flood and incessant rains in parts of the country.

A bench of Justices A M Khanwilkar and Sanjiv Khanna asked a counsel, appearing for 20 aspirants led by Vasireddy Govardhana Sai Prakash, to serve the copy of their writ petition to the UPSC and the Union government.

For latest updates and live news on coronavirus, click here

The court decided to consider the matter on September 28.

The petitioners, represented by senior advocate V K Shukla and advocate Alakh Alok Srivastava asked the court to direct the UPSC to defer the examinations for two-three months to let the curve of rising cases flatten.

They claimed that if the examination was to be held on October 4, it would result in gross violation of fundamental right to health and life. The biggest sufferers would be students from middle and lower middle class for being unable to arrange for transportation, accommodation and other expenses. They claimed states like Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh have already cancelled their tests for public service commission.

About 6 lakh aspirants are likely to appear in the seven-hour offline examination, at centres in 72 cities, putting their lives at utmost risk and danger, in the wake of country recording rise of 78,000 Covid-19 cases per day, they said.

On February 12, the UPSC has issued the notification for the examination to be held on May 31.

However, due to nationwide lockdown and alarming spurt in Covid-19 cases, the UPSC on May 20 postponed the examination indefinitely. But, it published a revised calendar and took a decision in an "utterly arbitrary, unreasonable, and whimsical" manner to conduct the examination on October 4, the petitioners claimed.