The Supreme Court on Monday postponed to Wednesday the hearing of a plea seeking postponement of civil services examination in view of alarming spurt of COVID-19 pandemic and floods.
The three-justice bench, headed by Justice A.M. Khanwilkar and comprising Justices B.R. Gavai and Krishna Murari, had announced last week it would hear the plea on Monday. Advocate Naresh Kaushik, who appeared for the UPSC, told the Supreme Court that it would not be possible to defer the prelims past October 4, noting such a move would "nullify the objective" of conducting the examination.
The bench asked the USPC to file an affidavit responding to the plea by Tuesday, following which the matter would be taken up on Wednesday.
The petitioners have sought postponement of the civil services exam for two to three months, so that the flood/ incessant rains go away and COVID-19 curve flattens.
The plea filed by Vasireddy Govardhana Sai Prakash and others submitted that the decision of the UPSC to conduct the exam in accordance with the impugned 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 plea has been filed by 20 UPSC aspirants against conducting of the Civil Services (Preliminary) Examination on October 4.
According to the plea this seven-hour-long offline exam, will be taken by approximately six lakh aspirants at test centres in 72 cities across the country.
“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 stated. The plea said 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.
(With inputs from PTI)
