The Supreme Court on Wednesday, 30 September, refused to delay the postponement of the UPSC civil services examination.
The civil services exam is scheduled to be held on 4 October 2020.
A plea was filed by few civil service aspirants who wanted the delay the UPSC prelims due to COVID-19 pandemic and floods in many parts of the country.
However, the top court asked the Centre to consider granting one more chance to UPSC aspirants who may not appear in their last attempt for exam due to pandemic.
The three-judge bench presided by Justices AM Khanwilkar, BR Gavai and Krishna Murari asked UPSC to conduct the examination while maintaining all COVID-19 related SOPs issued by Ministry of Home Affairs.
Meanwhile, the court did not permit separate isolation rooms for COVID-19 positive candidates to appear in the exam. UPSC had informed Court that anybody having symptoms of cough and cold will be made to sit in a separate room, Hindustan Times reported.
The court has asked the centre if candidates who are giving their last attempt due to age bar disqualification can appear next year if they are unable to appear this year due to COVID-19 situation.
The top court has also directed the states should give permission to candidates to travel between states after seeing their admit cards.
Meanwhile, the court has refused the suggestion from the petitioner to merge this year’s preliminary with next year.
“We are not impressed. We agree with UPSC that resorting to this suggestion will have a cascading effect on other examinations conducted by UPSC.”
Civil Services preliminary 2020 examination was earlier scheduled for 31 May, which was postponed in the view of COVID-19 pandemic. UPSC in June announced that it will conduct the prelim exams on 4 October at 2569 centres across 72 cities in the country.
(With inputs from Hindustan Times and PTI)
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