UPSC seeks details from 2 visually-impaired candidates,who took 2008 civil services, for appointment

PTI, Jan 3, 2025, 8:38 PM IST

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New Delhi: The Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) has sought details from two visually-impaired candidates who had taken civil services examination over 15 years ago, so that they can be considered for appointment, according to an official statement issued on Friday.

The move came following an order by the Supreme Court, which had in July last year directed that 11 candidates be considered for appointment against the backlog vacancies meant for Persons with Disabilities (PWD) candidates.

“Pursuant to the directions given by the Hon’ble Supreme Court in its judgment dated 08.07.2024 in Civil Appeal No. 3303/2015 (Union of India v. Pankaj Srivastava), the exercise of implementation has to be carried out on the basis of the details mentioned in the application form of the candidate,” said the statement issued by the UPSC.

However, the dossiers containing documents and the details of two candidates are “not available in UPSC”, it said, adding that “it has become necessary to communicate with the candidate so as to secure the relevant details and reconstruct the dossiers”.

The UPSC has sought details of Hira Lal Nag and Anil Kumar Singh — from the Other Backward Class community and Visually Impaired (VI) category) — both of whom had taken the civil services examination 2008.

Accordingly, the candidates “being beneficiary” of the apex court’s judgement have been asked to immediately contact the Commission within seven days” to enable the UPSC and the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) to take necessary steps in compliance, as per the statement.

In case no response is received within seven days, “it may be presumed that these candidates are no longer interested for being considered for allocation of services on the basis of civil services examination (CSE)-2008, in pursuance of Hon’ble Supreme Court’s judgement dated 08.07.2024”, it said.

The apex court had in its order directed appointment of a 100 per cent visually impaired candidate (Pankaj Kumar Srivastava) and slammed the Centre for failing to implement provisions of the Persons with Disabilities Act.

The top court had also directed that cases of respondent no 1 (Srivastava) and 10 other candidates belonging to category VI (Visually Impaired), who were above him in the merit list of CSE-2008, shall be considered for appointment against the backlog vacancies of PWD candidates.

The civil services examination is conducted annually by the UPSC to select officers of the Indian Administrative Service (IAS), Indian Foreign Service (IFS) and Indian Police Service (IPS) among others.