What’s the petition all about?
The petition has been filed by aspirants from various parts of the country seeking postponement of the civil services preliminary examinations due to pandemic and massive rains. In their plea, candidates have cited travel difficulties and virus risks while requesting for postponement. In fact, an Assistant Commandant of Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB) who is to appear in the examination also submitted a fresh application in the case urging for postponement of the preliminary examination. The petition points out that holding the exam will discriminate among candidates from majorly affected states and others, where Covid-19 cases are less.
In the other hand, advocate Naresh Kaushik representing the UPSC said deferment of the examination will hurt the process and added UPSC will find it completely impossible to agree with this.
What did the apex court say?
The apex Court bench comprising Justices AM Khanwilkar, Krishna Murari and BR Gavai heard the matter and directed UPSC to file an affidavit citing the logical reasons for not postponing the examination. This affidavit will be filed by September 29 and the matter will be taken up for hearing a day later. Earlier, the prelims was scheduled to be held on May 20. However, it was postponed to October 4 due to the Coronavirus outbreak.
Around 1 million candidates take the prelims examination to get an entry into various administrative posts in the government. This year, the exam is scheduled for October 4 while the shortlisted candidates will write the main examination on January 8, 2021.
Candidates will appear for the offline seven-hour examination to be conducted at centres across 72 cities in the country.
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