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The heated winter session of parliament cherished and paid gratitude to the great founding figures of the constitution and the intense arguments witnessed a range of issues from constitutionalism to secularism, from democracy to emergency, and challenges from domestic to international arenas. Many articles of the constitution especially from part Ⅲ and part Ⅳ were quoted and discussed from divergent perspectives. Article 16 of the Constitution guarantees the ‘equality of opportunity’ in public employment and the denial of the recognition of the fact that COVID-19 has enhanced the ‘inequality’ pressing the marginalised to the extreme margins that have led to the hierarchically unequal opportunities, grossly violates the spirit of said article. The peaceful protests of the candidates demanding a one-time COVID-19 compensatory UPSC-CSE attempt have witnessed the apathy of intellectuals, media and administrators.
Thousands of UPSC-CSE aspirants have lost their precious attempts during the COVID-19 years of 2020, 2021 & 2022 due to a multitude of disabilities and disastrous circumstances. Many aspirants have lost their family members and close relatives, many themselves were severely symptomatic and locked in the containment zones and quarantine centres, and many others were serving society as frontline workers with a belief that the government will take care of the upcoming. However, UPSC went ahead to conduct the CSE with ‘guideline notices issued and withdrawn’ giving the candidates only options as to “appear and disappear”, despite the resistance from the candidates owing to the COVID-19 plight and uncertainties manifested in the maxim of ‘Jaan Hai Toh Jahan Hai’. Under the forceful circumstances of having no choices, aspirants travelled to exam centres, risking their lives and those around them, having no choice but to violate social distancing and various central legislations in operations, however, still many were denied entry into the exam hall owning to temperature scanning at the gates. The emotional trauma and pathetic state of mind in the gloomy surrounding of deaths and despair, struggle to get oxygen cylinders and beds in hospitals and quadriplegic cognitive capacity, left the CSE as a rat race in which someone fortunate will surely win.
“Based on the judgement passed by the Hon’ble Apex Court, the matter has been considered and it has not been found feasible to change the existing provisions regarding the number of attempts and age limit in respect of the Civil Services Examination”, was the written reply by Dr Jitendra Singh MOS Personnel, Public Grievance and Pension on the demand raised by the parliamentarians inside the house. The traumatic tragedy of havoc wretched by the global pandemic cannot be described in words, however, genuine efforts to redeem the suffering shall be the course of related discussers. Although there is no question on the credibility of the CSE or the merit and hard work of selected candidates, but who will compensate the thousands who suffered the loss of the future due to the crippling disaster of the pandemic? Honourable Supreme Court in Abhishek Anand Sinha v. UOI, 2021, has advised the government to take a “Lenient view” in the light of the prevailing situation at the relevant time. Similarly, in Arjit Shukla v. UOI, the Honourable Court hinted at the discretion bestowed with authority under Regulation 4 of the Indian Administrative Services (Appointment by the Competitive Examination) Regulations, 1955. As a matter of legal fact, the apex court hadn’t passed any binding orders to provide any relaxations to the aspirants and left it to the authority and discretion of the executive, but it is also evident that the court hadn’t passed any decree to not to grant any relaxations to the COVID-19 affected candidates.
India, the largest democratic nation is rightly described as the mother of the democracy, Parliament- the temple of democracy and its committees are the democratic instruments to realise the constitutional goal of service to the citizens. The 112th Report of the Department Related Standing Committee (DRSC) on Personnel, Public Grievances, Law and Justice of Parliament headed by the late Sushil Kumar Modi has strongly recommended the one-time COVID-19 CSE attempt to compensate the sufferers. To quote the report, Para 4.16: “The Committee is of the opinion that COVID-19 has caused untold agony and insurmountable sufferings to many. The whole of India had come to a standstill, lives and livelihood got disrupted and the student community was also adversely affected. Keeping in the view the hardship faced by the student community during the first and second COVID waves, the Committee recommends the Government to change its mind and sympathetically consider the demand of CSE aspirants and grant an extra attempt with corresponding age relaxation to All Candidates”.
Many academicians and experts have demanded to declare 2019-2020 as a ‘Zero Academic Year’ and even more than 18 state governments have taken welfare measures to give at most three years relaxations with corresponding attempts at their respective state public service commissions examinations. Under the notion of ‘Jaan Bhi Jahan Bhi’, the union government has also extended the required relief to aspirants in various recruitments and examinations like SSC-GD, Railway-ALP, CA- Exam and others. The constitutional question in federal polity, however, is that if the state government can provide relief, why not the Union government? If the Union government had given much-needed relief to all the sectors and sections, what is holding back the welfare hands of the government for granting the one-time relaxation for compensating the extraordinary circumstances?
The Parliament has done their part, now it’s up to the central government to sidestep the arrogance of authority of bureaucracy and listen to the beats on the ground. The logic that exams happened on time and meritorious candidates were selected, while a ‘bunch of failures’ are demanding the compensatory attempt does not hold rational ground given the nature of the examination in which someone ought to get selected at the end of the procedure. The federal nature of basic features of the constitution and the fundamental right to equality and fair opportunity shall make the government change its mind and heart to grant a one-time COVID-19 UPSC CSE compensatory attempt to all those eligible in 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023, as covid had not discriminated between the last attempters or penultimate attempers, to realise the constitution vision of ‘Justice’ enshrined in the preamble of democratic republic of India.
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