The Supreme Court on Monday said that it will hear on March 21 the plea filed by UPSC aspirants, who had missed their Civil Services exam due to COVID-19 and sought an additional attempt.

A bench of justices AM Khanwilkar and CT Ravikumar had adjourned the matter after Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) counsel sought time to seek instruction on the matter.

The court has asked the parties concerned to file an affidavit on the plea.

It was hearing the petition filed by UPSC aspirants seeking to extend the benefit of an additional.extra attempt. Senior Advocate Gopal Sankaranarayanan appeared for the petitioners, and the petition was filed by three UPSC aspirants through advocate Shashank Singh.

The petitioners urged to issue appropriate direction to UPSC to extend the benefit of additional.extra attempt and to make some arrangement for the petitioners to appear in the rest of the papers which the petitioners could not give before the publication of the result of Civil service Mains Examination 2021.

The petitioners said that they are UPSC aspirants who have cleared the UPSC-2021 Prelims examination and were entitled to appear in the UPSC Mains examination which was scheduled from January 7-16, 2022.

They stated that they were unable to appear for the UPSC Mains examination due to being Covid positive and owing to the restrictions imposed under strict quarantine guidelines of the government.

Also, there was an absence of any kind of policy of UPSC which could provide arrangements for such petitioners who were Covid positive during the span of Mains examination or before it.

“Absence of policy and no arrangement to accommodate Covid positive petitioners to appear in the Civil Service Mains examination 2021 have violated the right of the Petitioners under Article 14 and 16 of the Constitution of India,” the petitioner said.