The Supreme Court on Monday dismissed the petitions challenging the decision of the Union Public Service Commission to treat certain civil servant aspirants as general category candidates for not submitting the certificates regarding the Economically Weaker Section category in the prescribed format before the prescribed cut-off date for the Civil Service Examinations 2022.
The Bench of Justice J.K. Maheshwari and Justice K.V. Viswanathan, while upholding the constitutional validity of the Civil Service Examination Rules 2022, held that the Commission was justified in rejecting the candidates’ claim for EWS quota for not submitting the requisite certificates before the prescribed cut-off date in the specified format.
Reading out the operative portion of the verdict, Justice Viswanathan said the candidates claiming benefit of EWS category for the purpose of CSE 2022 acquired the eligibility only if they met the criterion prescribed by the Central Government in the Office Memorandums dated January 19 and 31, 2019 and were in possession of required income and asset certificates based on the year 2020-21.
Mentioning the CSE Rules, he said the candidates should have the income and asset certificates as on February 22, 2022. Any candidate not in possession of the income and asset certificates in the prescribed format cannot claim the benefit of the EWS category, noted the Apex Court.
It further said that at the stage of DAF-1, the document in possession as on February 22, 2022 in the prescribed format had to be submitted online before the prescribed date.
The Bench said the UPSC was justified in rejecting the candidature of those candidates claiming benefit under the EWS category as they submitted the income and asset certificates beyond the stipulated deadline.
It further justified the Commission in prescribing the format and the cut-off for uploading the documents.