According to the bench of Justices Ranjan Gogoi and Ashok Bhushan, the differently-abled students will get seven chances to clear the UPSC Civil Services examinations as per the government policy of 2007.
In an order, the apex court said that disable candidates cannot ask for extra preferences on the ground of Other Backward Class (OBC) category and will get 7 instead of 10 attempts to clear the examination. According to the Supreme Court, it is not the case of treating unequal as equal, but it is about extending relaxations to the physically handicapped students in both general and OBC category.
Furthermore, the bench feels that physically handicapped category is a category itself and a student who is physically handicapped, no matter from whichever category he or she belongs to, is suffering from similar disability and should be treated equally while extending the concessions and relaxations.
SC further added that "no discrimination or arbitrariness can be found" when differently-abled candidates belonging to both the categories are granted seven attempts to clear the examination.
Furthermore, the court also adds that reservation was a matter of government and it is not a domain of SC to see if a particular public policy is wise or a better policy can be framed. The SC can only interfere if it feels that actions are being taken offending Article no. 14 that is the Right of Equality of the Constitution.