Lucknow: The Allahabad High Court has recently taken a serious view of a petition challenging the results of the Provincial Civil Services (PCS) Combined State/Upper Subordinate Services Preliminary Examination, 2025. The court has sought detailed responses from the Uttar Pradesh Government and the Uttar Pradesh Public Service Commission (UPPSC) regarding allegations of procedural irregularities and the "arbitrary" exclusion of meritorious reserved category candidates.
A Bench of Justice Manish Mathur was hearing a writ petition filed by Manish Kumar and three other aspirants. The petitioners have alleged that despite scoring higher marks than the cut-off fixed for the General (Unreserved) category, they were excluded from the list of candidates eligible for the Mains examination.
The primary legal grievance raised by the petitioners revolves around the principle of "Migration." In Indian reservation law, it is a settled principle that if a candidate from a reserved category (OBC/SC/ST) secures marks higher than the cut-off for the General category without availing of any specific relaxation (like age or attempts), they should be treated as a "General" candidate. This allows more candidates from the reserved categories to enter the merit list under their respective quotas.
The petitioners, represented by Advocates Krishan Kanhaya Pal and Pooja Pal, argued that the UPPSC failed to apply this rule. They contended that several OBC candidates who outperformed General category qualifiers were kept out of the Mains list, which directly contradicts the U.P. Public Services (Reservation for SC, ST & OBC) Act, 1994.
Beyond the reservation issue, the petition highlights several concerns regarding the conduct of the examination held on October 12, 2025:
Missing Final Answer Key: The petitioners stated that while a provisional answer key was released and objections were invited, the UPPSC never published a final or revised answer key. The results were declared on December 1, 2025, without addressing the candidates' objections.
Opacity in Result Declaration: The UPPSC notification explicitly stated that marks and category-wise cut-offs would only be disclosed after the final results of the entire selection process. Furthermore, the Commission stated it would not entertain RTI applications regarding these marks in the interim. The petitioners have termed this "arbitrary" and a "lack of transparency."
The 15:1 Ratio Rule: According to the official advertisement, the Commission was supposed to shortlist candidates for the Mains exam in a ratio of 15 times the number of vacancies. The plea alleges that this statutory ratio was not strictly followed in practice.
The petition further pointed out that the minimum efficiency standards were fixed at 40% for OBC candidates and 35% for SC/ST candidates. It is alleged that many candidates who met these standards were still not called for the Mains, despite the legal framework of the U.P. Direct Recruitment through Public Service Commission (Preliminary Examination) Rules, 1986, which suggests that meeting qualifying marks should entitle a candidate to proceed to the next stage.
To support their claims, the petitioners shared their calculated scores based on the provisional answer key, which stood at 126.35, 124, 121, and 121 marks. They argued that these scores are significantly high, yet they found themselves excluded while candidates with lower marks in the Unreserved category were permitted to move forward.
The plea relied heavily on a previous judgment of the Allahabad High Court dated September 25, 2025 (Rajat Maurya and 41 others vs. State of U.P.), where the court had directed the Commission to redraw a merit list to ensure that the benefit of migration was extended to meritorious reserved category candidates.
The petitioners have sought the following reliefs from the Court: