The Supreme Court on Wednesday refused to grant one more chance to those civil services aspirants who exhausted their permissible number of attempts while appearing in UPSC exam held in 2020 amid coronavirus pandemic. The students pleaded SC to grant one more chance as they could not prepare for test due to pandemic. The order was passed by a three-judge Bench of Justices AM Khanwilkar, Indu Malhotra, and Ajay Rastogi. Earlier this month, the Centre told the apex court that it was against granting one-time relaxation on age limit to UPSC civil service aspirants, including those who had exhausted their last attempt in 2020 exam amid the pandemic. Centre and UPSC said the concerned students would get one more chance this year provided they are not age barred, as it would be discriminatory to other candidates.
The Centre on Friday informed the Supreme Court that it has agreed to grant an extra chance to the civil services aspirants who could not appear or prepare well for their last attempt in the UPSC exam in 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic. 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 for CSE-2020 as their last permissible attempt and are otherwise not age-barred from appearing in CSE-2021, the Centre told a bench headed by Justice A M Khanwilkar. In a note filed in the apex court, the Centre said that no relaxation shall be granted for CSE-2021 to those candidates who have not exhausted their permissible number of attempts or to those who are otherwise age-barred from appearing in CSE-2021 as per the prescribed age limits of different categories, or to any other candidate for any other reason whatsoever.