Delhi High Court refuses to stay Civil Services Exams due to COVID-19

The Delhi High Court on Thursday refused to stay the Union Public Services Commission (UPSC) Mains Civil Services Examinations scheduled to start from tomorrow (Rajat Jain and Ors v. UPSC and Anr).Justice V Kameswar Rao said that the Court will not interfere with the examination process and therefore dismissed the petition filed by a group of 19 candidates. The candidates had approached the Court arguing that the conduct of exams amidst a potential third wave of the COVID-19 pandemic posed a serious threat to their health and lives. These candidates had cleared the prelims and are eligible to appear for the main exams. .Advocate Anushre Kapadia, appearing for the petitioners, told the Court that the candidates face an imminent risk of getting infected given the meteoric rise in COVID-19 numbers, which would ultimately lead to them losing out on their valuable attempt, which for many of them is the last attempt to appear in the Civil Services exams.Kapadia submitted that the exams are supposed to be a test of the candidates' intelligence and knowledge, not a test of their immunity. "This cannot be like the survival of fittest... Everything is shutting down. Cities like Chennai have closed down their public transport. Only people who can travel to exam centres are those who live at a walking distance. But there are people who have to travel from one state to another. They will be staying in hotels for 10 days. They will not only be exposing themselves, but even their families and friends," Kapadia argued. .Senior Advocate Naresh Kaushik, appearing for UPSC, responded that these exams have been planned for months in advance and every precaution has been taken for their safe conduct. He said that UPSC has already dealt with the prelims where over nine lakh candidates appeared, while only 9,000 candidates are expected to sit for the mains.He further argued that the Civil Services exams are held to fill up the posts at the very top echelons of the government and that cancellation of the exams will lead to a cascading effect thereby leading to shortage of officers at every level. .The plea had also argued that most of the centres are in big cities or metros which are worst affected by the pandemic, and therefore, the students face yet another grave risk.“The candidates/petitioners have gone through all of it and were set to appear in the examinations. However, suddenly the Covid-19 infection once again surfaced with its new variant Omicron and has spread exponentially in a very short period and is likely to give rise to a third Covid-19 wave,” the petition argued.It further stated, “There is no proper pre-examination testing. Temperature checks can be cheated by taking Paracetamol…Further, once infected, candidates will be prohibited from writing subsequent papers as per UPSC policy.”The petitioners therefore claimed that the exam schedule is arbitrary and violates the rights of the candidates as enshrined under the Constitution of India.