The Hon’ble Supreme Court earlier this week on 16th July 2021, Friday in a remarkable judgment allowed 5 Civil Service Aspirants who cleared UPSC Mains examination to attend an interview. Earlier the UPSC has cancelled their candidatures for not submitting their qualifying degree certificates by the prescribed date.
The Division Bench constituted by Justices AM Khanwilkar and Sanjiv Khanna quoted that the instant case is a “special case” and ought not to be considered as precedent, after taking note of the fact that the candidates could not submit the certificates on time because their universities declared the results lately due to Covid-19 pandemic.
After clearing the preliminary examination, the UPSC had allowed 12 candidates who were awaiting their final degree examination results on an undertaking basis to submit the degree certificates on a later date. 5 of the 12 candidates cleared the mains examination but their candidatures were cancelled by the UPSC for not submitting their degree certificates. The instant petition was filed by 4 of the said candidates. However, the Hon’ble Court has allowed the 5th candidate to attend the interview and asked the Counsel appearing for UPSC to furnish details of more such candidates if there are any.
The Hon’ble Court maintained that the Order will not cause any alterations in the already published list of candidates appearing for an interview but only these 5 candidates will be added to the list.
