The Supreme Court will hear the plea filed by 20 UPSC Civil Services aspirants through advocate Alakh Alok Srivastava against the decision of the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) to conduct the exam on October 4.
The aspirants seek the postponement of the prestige exam by 2-3 months due to the flood situation apart from the ongoing pandemic the country and world are facing.
The Civil Services exam was bound to be conducted on May 31 but due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent lockdown, UPSC had shifted the exam date to October 4 on June 6.
In the plea, the aspirants said that the Civil Services Exam is a recruitment examination and there would not be any question of delay or loss of any academic session.
“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 floods, 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.
The Supreme court has sought a response from the UPSC and Centre on this matter and has listed the matter for hearing on September 28.
