Shimla, May 4,
The Himachal Pradesh High Court has dismissed a petition seeking an extra chance to appear in the Civil Services Examination (CSE) conducted by the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC), citing lack of any valid legal or constitutional grounds. The verdict, delivered by Justice Ajay Mohan Goel on April 30, 2025, came in response to a writ petition filed by Raja Ram Sahu, who claimed he was unable to utilize his final UPSC attempt in 2020 effectively due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
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Sahu had approached the Court seeking a writ of mandamus directing the Union of India and UPSC to grant him one additional attempt in the 2025 examination cycle. He contended that the absence of a specific policy granting COVID-affected aspirants an extra attempt was violative of Articles 14, 19, 21, and 29 of the Constitution. The petitioner, who had been attempting the examination since 2013 and became age-barred after 2020, also urged the Court to direct the authorities to sympathetically consider his representation in view of parliamentary committee recommendations.
However, the Court found the plea entirely “misconceived.” It observed that the petitioner had not missed the examination due to any unforeseen circumstance, but had in fact participated in the 2020 attempt, along with other aspirants who succeeded despite similar challenges posed by the pandemic.
Justice Goel underlined that “unsuccessful participation” cannot be treated at par with “inability to appear” due to external factors. The Court noted that the petitioner had exhausted all permissible attempts from 2013 to 2020, and now sought judicial intervention only because he had failed to clear the examination during his valid tenure.
The bench firmly stated that the pandemic, although a real challenge, cannot be used as a blanket justification for relaxing well-set examination norms for individuals who had every opportunity to compete on level ground. The judgment emphasized that while genuine hardships may warrant consideration, the petitioner’s record did not reflect such hardship.
“The petitioner does not deserve any special chance,” the Court stated, dismissing the writ petition and all pending miscellaneous applications.
This decision sets a precedent reinforcing that judicial relief cannot be extended merely on the basis of perceived disadvantage, especially when the legal framework has been fairly applied to all candidates.
