The Union Government on Friday moved the Supreme Court challenging a Madras High Court order, which has held that backward category students competing for the civil services examination on merit cannot be given the benefit of reservation and allocated higher services and cadres. Appearing before a Bench of Chief Justice K G Balakrishnan, Additional Solicitor General Vikas Singh sought urgent hearing on the Government’s petition and pleaded for suspension of the March 2008 ruling of the Madras High Court.

The HC had held that Rule 16(2) of the Examination Rules of the Government of India for civil services examination ran counter to the benefit of SCs, STs and OBC candidates and was not affirmative, progressive and pragmatic in achieving social justice. Singh submitted that the High Court decision was coming in the way of declaring the results for this year’s examination.

In all, 457 candidates were selected for the final list for 2006 and 2007. Of this, 31 OBC and one SC candidate made it through the merit list, but at the same time availed their postings under the reserved category. This action by the UPSC, based on Rule 16 (2), deprived an equal number of candidates from the said communities of availing the postings, the High Court held.

The Government counsel said the UPSC generally declares the civil services examination results for a particular year weeks before holding the preliminary test (PT) for the subsequent year’s examination. He said though the PT for 2008 is to be held Sunday, the UPSC was not able to declare its final result for the 2007 civil services examination and this has left aspirants in a quandary over the issue of taking the PT and exhausting their limited attempts for it.

... contd.