Delhi High Court to hear plea against UPSC decision not to evaluate questions on English

NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court today agreed to hear tomorrow a plea against UPSC's recent decision asking Civil Services aspirants not to answer questions in the English Comprehensive section of the Preliminary Examination to be held on August 24.

"List it for hearing tomorrow," a bench of justices B D Ahmed and Siddharth Mridul said.

Recently, the Centre, following protests by a section of students over English Comprehension test in the Preliminary Examination of the Civil Services examination, decided to remove the questions of English languages in the CSAT.

Later, Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) came out with the decision asking candidates to leave the questions unanswered during the CSAT examination as the section will not have any bearing on the merit list due to non-evaluation.

Dinesh Bhatia, a female civil services aspirant, today moved the petition through her lawyer Vikas Nagwan against the August 16 notice of the UPSC that had said that questions under English Comprehension test category will not be checked.

"The change in the marking scheme, just one week before the exam, would adversely affect the interest of the candidates (including the petitioners) belonging to the arts, humanities and medical backgrounds," the lawyer said.

The UPSC, in its notification, had said, "The Paper-II would contain a section on English Language Comprehension Skills (Class X Level). Candidates must note that they do not have to answer the questions on this English Language Comprehension Skills (Class X Level) section. These questions will not be evaluated."

The maximum marks for Paper II would be '200 minus the marks earmarked for the English language comprehension skills (Class X level), the UPSC had said.