HC allows 2 candidates to appear in PCS mains day before exam

Dehradun: Uttarakhand high court (HC) has granted permission to two candidates to appear in the PCS (J) main examination conducted by the Uttarakhand Public Service Commission, after they challenged the removal of their names from the revised merit list of the preliminary examination. The main exam is scheduled for April 21.Anushka Bhandari and Anushree Khatri had filed a petition stating that they had appeared for the PCS (J) preliminary examination and were initially included in the list of successful candidates.Meanwhile, certain individuals approached the court alleging flaws in some of the questions asked in the preliminary examination. Following this, a revised merit list was released, in which both candidates were excluded by a narrow margin of a few marks. They subsequently challenged their exclusion.On Monday, during a hearing before a division bench comprising Justices Manoj Kumar Tiwari and Siddhartha Sah, the candidates’ counsel cited a Supreme Court of India order in the case of ‘Harikishan vs Rajasthan’. The ruling said that once a candidate is declared successful in a competitive preliminary examination, they cannot be subsequently excluded. Relying on this precedent, the court granted permission to both candidates to appear in the main examination.