One man’s efforts have saved the candidature of 12 candidates for the Civil Services (Main) Examination (CSE) from being cancelled.
Atish Mathur, a lawyer who also trains Civil Service aspirants, has been working towards helping candidates appearing for UPSC (Union Public Service Commission) CSE in both legal and academic aspects. Mathur has taken up several legal issues pro bono related to UPSC in the last few years.
In this recent case, the admit cards of 17 candidates were withheld by the commission and their candidatures were cancelled due to minor clerical issues with their degrees or Economically Weaker Section (EWS) certificates.
Atish Mathur took the matter to the Supreme Court after which the court directed the UPSC to issue certificates to 12 of these 17 candidates on Wednesday, September 13.
In a conversation with Edex Live, Atish Mathur explained that since EWS certificates are issued on a district or sub-district level, there is no uniformity and many of them end up getting cancelled in later stages of the examination process.
“While you are applying for the Mains examination, you are supposed to have your degree and EWS/caste certificates ready. However, in some cases where universities do not issue degrees on time or there is some clerical issue with the certificates, UPSC ends up cancelling the registration of candidates,” he explained.
This is not the first time that the commission has held back admit cards over minor clerical errors in candidates’ certificates.
“Last year, the candidature of a few students was cancelled arbitrarily after they had already gone through the interview process. Then again, we reached the Supreme Court to resolve the issue. This time, the issue came forward in the early stages,” Mathur explained.
During the COVID-19 pandemic as well, many aspirants were denied candidature due to delay in the issue of degrees by their respective universities, he explained.
Apart from his legal interventions, Atish Mathur has been helping Civil Services aspirants in areas including Polity, Governance, Social Issues, International Relations, Ethics, and for interviews as well.
Achyut Hazarika, one of the Civil Service aspirants whose admit cards were withheld by the commission, shared, "I had a problem with my EWS certificate where the financial year mentioned had an error and hence, the commission cancelled my candidature. There were 17 total candidates who reached out to Atish sir, four of them had an issue with their education qualification certificates and the rest had issues with the EWS certificate. Now, after his intervention we have been issued admit cards."
UPSC Mains is scheduled to be conducted from tomorrow, September 15 and will continue till September 2023.
