UPDATE: 10 Feb 2014: Central Government approved TWO Extra attempts. Click me for more
Old information below:

1. Prologue
2. Personnel Ministry on Anti-UPSC protests
   1. Government did receive petitions
   2. Minister’s reply in Rajya Sabha= We’ll change nothing
   3. No new Committee about this
3. UPSC on Parliament protests for age-attempt relaxation
   1. UPSC has not responded to these groups
   2. UPSC has formed no Committee to look in their demands
   3. UPSC is involved in court cases about this matter
4. Nigvekar confidentiality continues
5. 63^rd Annual report

Prologue

• 1979: UPSC changed the exam system and senior players were additional relaxation in age/attempts.
• 2011: UPSC introduced aptitude (+English comprehension) paper in Preliminary exam. Leading to new controversies about Engineer vs Non-Engineer, Urban vs Rural, english vs. Non-english medium.
• 2013: UPSC changed Mains exam. Four instead of Two papers on general studies, removed certain optional subjects such as Pali literature.
• March 2013: UPSC took back some of the some radical reforms about literature, answer-medium etc. after uproar in parliament.
• 9^th December 2013: Group of UPSC aspirants protested outside Parliament during winter session. Overall, They demanded:
  1. Give additional relaxation in age/attempt to senior players.
  2. Reduce the weightage given to Aptitude/English in Preliminary (CSAT) exam.
  3. Restore Arabic, Persian, Spanish, German literature etc. optional subjects in the mains examination.

• 16 December 2013: I filed RTI to both UPSC and Personnel ministry to see if they took cognizance of this matter and what are they planning to do about it?
• 20 January 2014: received replies from both.

Replies are given below, so you know what the most likely outcome of this protest/campaign/demands, and make your preparation /career decision accordingly. (Purpose of this article is not to sprinkle salt on any senior player’s wounds.)

Personnel Ministry on Anti-UPSC protests

Government did receive petitions

Q. Has Government of India/Personnel Ministry/any departments thereunder, received official petition from any such group(s) demanding any such changes? What decision has been made in this regard?

• The Government has further received certain representations seeking relaxation in upper age limit and number of attempts. In this regard the Central Government gave an answer to the Parliament on the similar subject.
• Furthermore the Government has also received the certain representation regarding exclusion of pali and foreign languages for the list of optional subjects. No change in this regard-has been decided so far.
• A copy of the Rajya Sabha Starred Question No. 113 replied on 12.12.2013 and answer given is enclosed.

Minister’s reply in Rajya Sabha= We’ll change nothing

1. There is no proposal in the Government at present to effect further changes.
2. The Government does not have any information about strike by aspirants of UPSC examination.
3. However, there are media reports of demonstrations by aspirants of UPSC and some representation/references have been received from various quarters seeking relaxation in the upper age limit and the number of attempts.
4. The view of the Government is that additional attempts and consequently relaxation in the upper age limit are not warranted, since, in the revised scheme, the overall number of papers to be taken by a candidate remains the same.
5. The optional subjects have been reduced from two to only one, thus reducing the optional papers from four to two; and the number of papers for general studies has been increased from two to four. Therefore, there is no overall additional burden or stress on the candidates.

No new Committee about this pattern change

Q. Has Government of India/Personnel Ministry/any departments thereunder, appointed any panel / committee / task force / expert-panel or similar entity or officer to look into the demands made by such individuals/groups/petitions/news or TV reports? IF yes what was its findings / recommendations?

CPIO replies: As on date there is no such panel/committee/task force that is reconsidering the notification issued by the Government on 25.3.2013. (About the pattern change.)

UPSC on Parliament protests for age-attempt relaxation

I had asked UPSC almost the same RTI questions in a separate application.

UPSC has not responded to these groups

Q. Has UPSC received formal petition/application from any such group(s) demanding any such changes? yes / no? What decision has UPSC made on their petition(s)?

Yes. The Commission has received a few representations from individuals as well as from some organizations. The Commission did not give any response to those representations.

UPSC has formed no Committee to look in their demands

Q. Has UPSC appointed any panel / committee / task force / expert-panel or similar entity or officer to look into the demands made by such groups/individuals? If yes what was its findings / recommendations?

“NO” (we not have not formed any such panel/committee to look into this protest/demand)

UPSC is involved in court cases about this matter

Q. Is UPSC involved in any court litigation(s)/PILs related to this issue? If yes, how much money has UPSC spent on lawyer fees?

Yes. To the extent of a proforma party in a few cases since the Commission is mandated to conduct the Civil Services Exam as per the rules of the examination notified by the Govt. As regards payment of fees to Lawyers, information has not been compiled.

–moving to next RTI question–

Nigvekar confidentiality continues

Q. In another RTI, CPIO had informed that “Prof. Nigavekar Committee Report has been received by the Commission on 30.8.2012 and the recommendations of the Committee, after due consideration of the Commission have been forwarded to Govt. of India on 31.10.2012 and their response is awaited.” In that regard, Kindly provide me the copy of the said response (letter/file/official communication) from Government of India to UPSC.

(I had asked above question to both UPSC and Personnel ministry in separate RTIs)

UPSC replies:

Copy of the response of Govt. of India cannot be supplied as the concerned public authorities have treated it as ‘Confidential’ under Section 8(i)(d) of RTI Act, 2005.

Personnel Ministry replies

The deliberations on the recommendation of the Nigavekar Committee and the UPSC have not reached to finality on all the issues .This subject matter has been considered to be confidential by the public authority and as such the details of the same cannot be disclosed. In this regard, section 8(1) (d) of the RTI Act, 2005 is invoked, the public authority being the affected third party

Mrunal comments:

• Even SSC uploads the proposed changes in exams and Committee recommendations on their website. What is so sacrosanct about Nigavekar? All the RTIs pertaining to Nigavekar are stonewalled as if this is Henderson Brooks report on 62’s defeat by China.
• Leads to new conspiracy theory: That Nigavekar Committee has gave some “politically incorrect” recommendations (about reservation, age-attempt, may be statewise separate cutoffs etc.) and therefore you’re shying away from disclosing it because of the upcoming General election.

63^rd Annual report

Q. Under the Article 323(1) of the Constitution, UPSC sends an annual report to President. On the official website of UPSC, latest report is 62nd Annual report of 2011-12 (i.e upto March 31, 2012). I checked the page on 16^th Decembr 2013. So, with respect to that, I seek following information: Has UPSC prepared the 63^rd Annual Report (2012-13) for the President of India. If yes, I seek an electronic copy (CD/DVD/PDF) of that report.

UPSC replies:

Yes. The 63rd Annual Report is available on the website of UPSC (www.upsc.gov.in)

Mrunal comment:

Observe the file size:

Thus the “transparency” objective is defeated even after uploading the report on the website= one more reason why UPSC = Lord Curzon.

anyways, I’ll be uploading the gist of that report in upcoming days.

Ref: scanned copies of

1. Personnel Ministry’s RTI reply: https://files.secureserver.net/0sRXKgcE62aKnO
2. UPSC’s RTI reply: https://files.secureserver.net/0s5LBYNDXo6UlX

For more RTI misadventures, visit Mrunal.org/RTI.