UPSC has scheduled Civil Services exam on October 4.
The Supreme Court will hear a plea on September 28, which seeks postponement of Civil Services exam by 2-3 months due to flood situation and COVID-19 crisis in the country. The plea has been filed by 20 UPSC aspirants through advocate Alakh Alok Srivastava against the decision of the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) to conduct the exam on October 4.
The top court has sought response from the UPSC and Centre on this matter and has listed the matter for hearing on September 28.
The Civil Services exam was earlier scheduled to be held on May 31. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent lockdown which was imposed to contain the spread of the infection the exam was postponed. On June 6, the UPSC had announced the new date of the exam and intimated the candidates that it will conduct the exam on October 4.
In their plea, the petitioners have said that the Civil Services Exam, being a recruitment examination, is altogether different from an academic examination and in the event of its postponement, there would not be any question of delay or loss of any academic session.
Meanwhile, many exams including the entrance tests like NEET and JEE Main, which were also postponed due to COVID-19, have already been completed. The exams were held before September 15.
"Conducting the aforesaid examination across India at such perilous time, is nothing else but putting lives of lakhs of young students (including Petitioners herein) at utmost risk and danger of disease and death. Also, the natural calamities like flood, incessant rain, landslides etc. are likely to directly affect the life and health of the Petitioners and many similarly situated students. Hence, the impugned Revised Calendar is utterly arbitrary, unreasonable, whimsical and patently violative of the "Right to Health" and "Right to Life" of the Petitioners herein and lakhs of similarly situated students, under Article 21," the petition has stated.
After rescheduling the exam, UPSC had allowed candidates to change their exam centres. As a general practice, candidates are asked to give preferences in the exam centres they wish to appear the exam from. The centres are allotted to candidates on the basis of the choices given by them and the capacity of the exam centre.
However, the UPSC has not yet said anything on expanding the number of test centres.
"It is pertinent to mention here that despite alarming spurt in COVID-19 pandemic, UPSC did not increase the number of Examination Centres, resulting into a situation where many candidates from rural areas will be forced to travel for around 300-400 Kilometres, in order to reach to their Examination Centres and there will be high probability of such aspirants, getting affected while using public transportation for such travel," the petitioners have said in the plea.
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