The petitioners said the UPSC “arbitrarily” issued the application form for the mains examination, so their main writ plea before the court seeking the answer key of the preliminary exam becomes “infructuous”. The Delhi High Court Thursday refused to stay the Union Public Services Commission (UPSC) call inviting applications for Civil Services (Main) Examination, 2023. ‘A single-judge bench of Justice Chandra Dhari Singh dismissed an application moved by various civil servant aspirants in a pending matter, seeking a direction to stay ‘Detailed Application Form-1’, dated July 10, issued by the UPSC. The petitioners, in their application, said the UPSC “arbitrarily” issued the DAF for the mains examination, so their main writ plea before the court seeking the answer key of the preliminary exam becomes “infructuous”. The application states that by issuing the form the UPSC was showing “undue hastiness” to “subvert the process of law and justice and carry on its arbitrary practices in a covert manner”. It also said the UPSC, in the “past” too, had “successfully got cases dismissed” on account of them becoming “infructuous due to non-compliance, passage of time or change in circumstances”.

The aspirants had moved the application in a writ petition against a June 12 press note which stated that the answer key of the preliminary exam would be uploaded only “after the entire process of the Civil Services Examination 2023 is over”. The main plea also sought a direction to the body to publish the answer key with immediate effect. The main writ petition stated that normally when a competitive exam is conducted, the answer key to the questions (multiple choice questions) is prepared in advance so the same can be released after the exam is conducted, giving a “fair evaluation to the candidates”. However, the June 12 press note titled ‘result of civil services preliminary examination’ mentioned that “candidates are also informed that marks, cut off marks and answer keys of CS(P) Examination, 2023 will be uploaded on the Commission’s website i.e. https://upsc.gov.in, only after the entire process of the Civil Services Examination 2023 is over, that is, after the declaration of final result”. Justice Singh, on July 3, “without issuing notice” in the main plea, granted 10 days of time to the commission to file its “preliminary objections” and listed the matter for hearing on July 26.