The Supreme Court has recently come to the rescue of 8 civil services aspirants by directing the Union Public Service Commission to issue admit cards to them for the mains examination scheduled on September 15.
However, the top court, made it clear that the interim relief permitting the aspirants to take up the mains examination will subject to the final outcome of their petition.
A bench of Justices AS Bopanna and Prashant Kumar Mishra, which was hearing two separate petitions, granted interim relief to 8 aspirants, who were denied admit cards by the UPSC on the grounds of non-submissions of provisional certificates supporting their qualification and improper certificate for availing the EWS quota benefits.
Therefore, while dealing with the 1st petition in which provisional certificates were not submitted, the bench stated that in view of the fact that the Civil Services Mains Exam is scheduled to be held on September 15, the interest of the petitioners will be affected if they aren’t allowed to appear for the test.
The bench ordered “Making it subject to the final result of this petition, we direct the respondent (UPSC) to issue the necessary admission ticket to appear for the exam,” and allowed Haryana residents Deepanshu and Sushil Kumar to appear in the examination.
Similarly, in the 2nd petition, where the aspirants were denied admit cards by the UPSC owing to an error in their certificate specifying their Economically Weaker Section status, the bench asked UPSC to grant admit cards to 6 aspirants.
During the hearing, advocate Gaurav Agrawal, who argued on behalf of both sets of aspirants stated that in the case of Deepanshu and Kumar, there was delay in furnishing the certificate as academic session and was delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
He stated, “As a result they could not submit their certificates in time to the UPSC,” adding that the results of their final year examination of their graduation course were declared by their respective universities after the cut-off date July 19, 2023, fixed by the UPSC.
Agrawal stated that in the 2nd set of aspirants, the UPSC pointed out that there were minor errors such as overwriting in their EWS certificate and hence, denied them the admit card for the mains examination. The advocate stated, the issue happened due to mistake committed by tehsildar.
“The error was however rectified by these aspirants,” he said but the candidature of these aspirants got cancelled by the UPSC.
Both sets of aspirants cleared the prelims examination. They approached the top court as they could have lost an attempt for clearing the civil service examination, Agrawal told the bench.
He added that according to rules, whether a candidate appears for the mains examination or not, his attempt is counted.