No proposal under consideration for giving extra attempt to UPSC aspirants: Govt

New Delhi: There is no proposal under consideration for giving additional attempts to aspirants of civil services examination for the year 2022, the Rajya Sabha was informed on Thursday.

The issue of granting age relaxation and extra attempt to the candidates in civil services examination (CSE) due to the COVID-19 pandemic had been brought before the Supreme Court of India vide writ petitions filed by the aspirants, Minister of State for Personnel Jitendra Singh said in a written reply.

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Based on the judgements passed by the apex court, the matter has been considered and it has not been found feasible to change the existing provisions regarding number of attempts and age-limit in respect of the civil services examination, he said.

“In view of above, no such proposal is under consideration,” said Singh, replying to a query whether “the government would consider giving additional attempts for the year 2022?”. The civil services examination is conducted annually to select officers of Indian Administrative Service (IAS), Indian Foreign Service (IFS) and Indian Police Service (IPS) among others.

Candidates who exhausted their last chance to appear in the UPSC exam in 2020 had petitioned before the Supreme Court to allow them an extra chance as their preparation was affected due to the lockdown that was caused by widespread COVID-19 lockdown. The apex court dismissed the petition.

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The Centre told the Supreme Court on February 9, 2021, that it is not willing to grant any relaxation in age limit to the UPSC IAS aspirants who had exhausted their last attempt in 2020.