The Supreme Court on Wednesday rejected a plea by a group of civil service candidates seeking extra chance to sit for this year's

 The petitioners, some of whom were frontline workers during the Covid-19, lost their last attempt at  an UPSC examination,Suprimecourt rejected their plea

                               

Suprime Court Reject the appeal of the civil service candidate seeking extra chance

       

The Supreme Court on Wednesday rejected a plea by a group of civil service candidates seeking extra Chance to sit for this year's civil service (preliminary) examination.  The petitioners, some of whom were frontline workers during the Covid-19, lost their last attempt at an examination held last year amid the epidemic and were transferred to the apex court to be spared their extra opportunity.

  A bench of Justices AM Khanwilkar, Indu Malhotra and Ajay Rastogi declared that they had dismissed the appeal.  That copy of the verdict will be uploaded on the Supreme Court website the next day.

  The judgment was reserved on February 9. The petitioners, the Center and the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) at the end of the hearing.

The petitioners, numbering over 100, were barred by age or number of attempts and were ineligible to appear in the preliminary exam to be conducted this year. Although the Centre had initially opposed the petitions, towards the end of the proceedings, it decided to create a 'one time' exception for those who lost out on another attempt at the civil services having exhausted their quota of attempts.

In the general category, candidates get six attempts till the age of 32 years, nine attempts till the age of 35 years if they are in OBC category, and unlimited attempts till 37 years of age if they belong to SC/ST category.

The court asked the Centre to extend a similar concession to age-barred candidates as well but the Centre refused to accede to that demand. The petitioners claimed that due to their busy work schedule during Covid-19, they could not prepare for the examination.

The Center informed the court that about 34,000 candidates had applied for the preliminary examination for the preliminary examination in 2020. That year it would create an unlimited cycle of syllabus or age or number of attempts.  In this case, any relaxation given to the government by those who passed the preliminary examination will also be disrupted. And any intervention by the court occurs only when the (government's) decision is arbitrary or ridiculous.  '

  The preliminary examination was held on October 4 last year.  The court, on February 9 this year, stated that it was easy for the petitioner to take the Centre's proposal as it would be difficult for the court to resolve the discrepancy between age-restricted and attempted-banned candidates.