The Supreme Court recently dismissed a petition which sought an extra chance for those UPSC aspirants who had exhausted all their attempts in October 2020 exam. The Court was presided by a three-judge Bench composed of Justices AM Khanwilkar, Indu Malhotra, and Ajay Rastogi. In this case, the petitioners stated before the Court that they failed to appear for the UPSC CSE Exam 2020 due to the disruptions caused by the pandemic and so, sought an extra attempt for the UPSC 2021 Civil Services Exam.
In the previous court session, the government told the Court that such candidates who appeared for CSE-2020 as their last permissible attempt will be allowed one more extra-attempt specifically limited to CSE-2021 provide they are not age-barred from appearing in it. Senior Advocates Shyam Divan, CU Singh, and PS Narasimha, who represents the Petitioners, stated that not granting the relaxation in the age-bar would be unreasonable since the pandemic affected vulnerable people the most.
Additional Solicitor General SV Raju, who represents the government in court, then objected by stating that the pandemic affected all candidates uniformly and if an extra chance is given to last-attempt candidates, then other candidates will also start demanding the same, creating an “endless cycle”.
