By IANS,
New Delhi : Uttar Pradesh Thursday moved the Supreme Court challenging an Allahabad High Court order that scrapped the result of the preliminary test of the state’s civil services examination for 2007.
The state government contended that the high court ruling has not merely brought the entire three-stage selection process of its civil services for the year to a naught but has also cast a doubt over the legality of the results of various other examinations for state jobs.
The high court Aug 30 scrapped the exam result, ruling that the introduction of quota for Dalit and backward category candidates at the stage of preliminary examination itself was not legally justified.
A division bench of Justice Amitav Lala and Justice Umanath Singh also asked the state government to conduct the examination afresh within a month.
The high court’s order came on a lawsuit by a candidate, Dhananjay Singh, who had challenged the state government rule for quotas.
Singh had pointed out that to provide reservation to Dalit and backward category students, the Uttar Pradesh Public Service Commission had changed its rule for holding preliminary tests for the state’s civil services examination for 2007.
He said that to provide the quota, the commission had fixed different cut-off marks for different categories of candidates.
Citing an apex court ruling in the case of Andhra Pradesh Public Service Commission versus Balaji, the high court ruled that as per the Uttar Pradesh Public Service Commission rules and regulations, the preliminary tests are not meant to select the candidate for the state job itself.
It is merely a process to screen the most eligible candidates, who appear for the civil service examination in huge and unmanageable numbers, the high court had ruled.
The candidates are eventually selected for jobs on the basis of the main examination and the interview, which follows the preliminary exams, the high court had reasoned.
It had also directed that if the requisite number of the backward and Dalit category candidates fail to clear preliminary tests, the joint and common cut-off for all students should be lowered rather than having different cut-offs for different categories.
The Uttar Pradesh commission had issued the advertisement for the State Civil Services Examination in March 2007 and had held the preliminary examination in September 2007. The results had been declared in February 2009, and the main civil services examination 2007 was held in July-August 2009.
But the high court’s order had rendered the main examination meaningless.