Can give one extra chance to civil services aspirants with certain conditions: Centre tells SC

UPSC aspirants can be given an extra chance for those who appeared in their last attempt in the 2020 exam amid the Covid-19 pandemic, said the Centre

The Centre and the UPSC on Friday agreed before the Supreme Court to give an extra chance to candidates who appeared for Civil Services Examinations-2020.

In a written note, the Union government submitted before a bench presided over by Justice A M Khanwilkar stated that relaxation, only to the extent of providing one extra attempt for Civil Service Examination (CSE), specifically limited to CSE-2021, may be granted to only those candidates who appeared in 2020 exam as their last permissible attempt. Such candidates should otherwise be not age-barred from appearing in 2021.

At present, candidates from general category get six attempts till the age of 32, nine attempts by the OBC till 35 and SC/ST candidates unlimited attempts till 37 in the Civil Services examinations conducted by the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC).

The Friday's note further said no relaxation should be granted for CSE-2021 to those candidates who have not exhausted their permissible number of attempts or to those candidates who are otherwise age-barred.

Further, it said, this should be considered as one-time relaxation only for CSE-2021 and should not be treated as a precedent.

The court directed for circulating the note to the petitioners Rachna and others and put the matter for consideration on February 8.

The petitioners sought an extra attempt for the UPSC Civil Services Prelims 2021 as some of the candidates could not perform up to their optimum level due to the disruptions caused by the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic.