The Supreme Court on Thursday issued a notice to the Centre and the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) on a plea filed by UPSC aspirants urging the court to postpone the upcoming civil services exam.
The plea has been filed by the students to stop the conduct of the Civil Services (Preliminary) Examination on October 4. The petitioners have stated that exams should be postponed until the flood/incessant rains i9n certain states go away, and the COVID-19 curve flattens.
In view of the rising cases of COVID-19 pandemic and floods, the apex court has sought a response from the Centre and the UPSC on the postponement of civil services 2020 examinations.
The plea submitted that the decision of the UPSC to conduct the exam in accordance with the Revised Calendar, violates the rights of the petitioners and those similarly situated, under Article 19 (1) (g) of the Constitution to practice their chosen profession/occupation of serving the public.
The matter was heard by a bench of Justices A M Khanwilkar and Sanjiv Khanna. The next hearing is scheduled to take place on September 28, 2020.
The plea specified that conducting the exam during the pandemic will put 'lives of lakhs of young students at utmost risk and danger of disease and death'. It also stated that 'the natural calamities like flood, incessant rain, landslides etc. are likely to directly affect the life and health of the aspirants.'
The civil services exam is taken by candidates who are interested in getting recruited and trained for various services by the Central government and then allotted different state cadres. It is a roughly year-long endeavor between the posting of notification to the declaration of the final results as the exams are held in three stages-- Civil Services Exam (Preliminary) – Objective Type, Civil Services Exam (Main) – Descriptive Type, Personality Test / Interview .