(News) UPSC cannot relax limit of four attempts for IAS aspirants : HC

News : UPSC cannot relax limit of four attempts for IAS aspirants : HC

Ruling that the UPSC has no power to allow an IAS aspirant to make more than four attempts in Civil Services Examination (CSE), the Delhi High Court today rejected a candidate's plea to consider his fifth successful attempt as valid.
A general category candidate is entitled to make a maximum of four attempts but Praveen Sharma appeared in the exam for the fifth time after a single judge allowed him to do so while referring the matter to CAT for a final decision.

Sharma filed an appeal after Central Administrative Tribunal dismissed his petition for giving a direction to the UPSC.

A Division Bench of Justice Madan B Lakur and Justice Suresh Kait has now dismissed a his plea for a direction to the UPSC to consider his fifth attempt, in which he qualified all the tests including final interview in 2006, as the final try and consider fourth as "aborted attempt" as he failed to sit in all the papers due a serious accident.

"There is no doubt that undue hardship has been caused to petitioner (Sharma) due to an accident and circumstances beyond his control but that by itself does not mean that the rules which are applicable to all candidates should be waived in so far as Sharma is concerned...This would result in a chaotic situation and even the UPSC may not be able to handle it," the Bench observed in a judgement.

In the petition Sharma said that he had appeared the examinations in 2001, 2003, 2004 and during his fourth attempt in 2005 he had met with a serious accident as a result he was not able to appear in some papers and in 2006 his application for another attempt was rejected by the Commission.

Being aggrieved with the UPSC's decision, Sharma had approached the High Court with a submission that his fourth attempt should not be treated as the final chance and to be treated as "aborted attempt".

Courtesy : Ptinews.com