PIL plea seeks civil services exams in all regional languages

A public interest litigation petition has been filed in the Madras High Court seeking a direction to the Centre and the UPSC to conduct the civil services examinations in all 22 regional languages listed under the Eighth Schedule to the Constitution.

A public interest litigation petition has been filed in the Madras High Court seeking a direction to the Centre and the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) to conduct the civil services examinations in all 22 regional languages listed under the Eighth Schedule to the Constitution.

The First Division Bench of Chief Justice Sanjay V. Gangapurwala and Justice D. Bharatha Chakravarthy on Friday directed the petitioner’s counsel S. Manuraj to serve the case papers on the Central government standing counsel concerned and decided to hear the latter on December 6.

S. Balamurugan, 45, of Madurai had filed the case stating that the question papers for the civil services examinations were being set only in Hindi and English thereby providing an “unfair” advantage to those who know Hindi as against others who were proficient in other regional languages.

The petitioner pointed out that 11.35 lakh candidates applied for the civil services examinations, conducted by UPSC, in 2022. Of them, 5.73 lakh appeared for the choice-based preliminary examination and 13,090 candidates wrote the descriptive answer-type main examinations.

Though the civil services continue to be the most sought after, the notification issued by UPSC for the examinations held in 2023 shows that the question papers for the preliminary examination would be set only in Hindi and English and not in any of the other languages in the eighth schedule to the Constitution.

“This results in discrimination and denial of equal employment opportunities” because candidates proficient in either Hindi or English clear the preliminary examination easily compared to others who do not make it to the descriptive-type main examination in which the questions could be answered in any of the 22 languages, he said.

“Conducting examinations only in English and Hindi creates a situation in which not everyone would get a fair and equal opportunity in employment. This would result in not providing a level playing field for individuals who come from Hindi-speaking States and those from non-Hindi-speaking States,” his counsel argued.