UPSC Civil Services 2023: Plea In Delhi High Court Challenges Central Administrative Tribunal's Refusal To Stay Prelims Result

A petition has been filed before the Delhi High Court challenging Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT)'s refusal to grant interim relief in the plea seeking reduction in the cut off from 33% to 23% for qualifying Part II (CSAT) exam of 2023 Civil Services Examination conducted by UPSC last month.

Submitting that matter, which has been listed for July 06 by CAT, is likely to become infructuous, the petition before the high court prays that the UPSC be restrained from acting any further on the result declared on June 12.

"This matter affects lakhs of students across the country who are affected by CSAT Paper II , conducted by UPSC. Since the result for the same has been declared on 12.06.2023, it is necessary that this matter be heard at the earliest," the petition filed through advocate Saaket Jain contends. 

While issuing notice, the Tribunal had earlier refused to direct the Commission to keep the preliminary result in abeyance as prayed for by the applicants.

Background

Alleging that the difficulty level of the questions was similar to those asked in CAT and IIT JEE examinations, some of the candidates of the 2023 Civil Services Examination have challenged CSAT exam conducted last month and asked the Tribunal to direct the Commission “to reduce the cut off for Paper II CSAT from 33% to 23%.”

“Alternatively, this tribunal should direct the commission to conduct a re-exam for Paper II (CSAT) as part of Civil Services Preliminary Examination 2023,” the plea prays.

The applicants have argued before CAT that as per the UPSC syllabus, CSAT is designed to test the general aptitude of candidates, and they are expected to possess the ability to solve basic questions relating to comprehension, logical reasoning, etc., at the Class X level.

“Going against the syllabus provided, UPSC has come up with a paper which cannot be cleared by anyone who possesses only basic knowledge of mathematics (Class X level) as the difficulty level of the questions is similar to that of questions asked in CAT examination and IIT JEE examination,” the plea alleges.

According to the plea, the Paper II (CSAT) conducted by the UPSC was not only out of syllabus but it is also discriminatory for candidates of humble background who cannot afford special coaching or belongs to rural areas or from arts stream.

The applicants have also said that this year at least 10 questions were asked from a topic, which is a part of Class XI NCERT Mathematics Syllabus, and questions were also taken from previous years exams from IIT JEE or CAT.

“When a qualifying paper is made that difficult it excludes the candidates on the basis which has no nexus with the object of the exam,” the plea argues, adding that since this exam contained questions that are out of syllabus and questions that are not Class X level, same may be examined by an expert committee and then further action regarding these questions be taken on the basis of recommendations of the committee.

The plea argues that though UPSC has a discretion in setting the question paper but the same cannot be immune from judicial review if it is otherwise discriminatory, arbitrary and falls foul of the constitution.

"The paper II (CSAT) conducted by the UPSC is not only out of syllabus but it is also discriminatory for the various categories of candidates i.e., candidates of humble background who cannot afford special coaching, candidates of rural background, candidates from arts/humanities and even for the urban candidates who have not studied higher level mathematics," it adds.

Alleging that questions were taken even directly from the CAT and JEE-Advanced question papers, the plea argues that though there is no prohibition in taking questions from other competitive exams but same should be in consonance with the overall objective of the recruitment as to what kind of a candidate is to be selected.

Case Title: Siddharth Mishra & Ors. V. UPSC

Counsel for petitioners: Advocate Saaket Jain