In a significant development for aspiring engineers, a division bench of the Allahabad High Court has directed the Uttar Pradesh Public Service Commission (UPPSC) to conduct the main examination for the Combined State Engineering Services (CSES)-2024 as per the original schedule. The examination is slated for September 28 and 29.
While permitting the exam to go ahead, the court clarified a crucial detail: the results will be declared subject to the final decision in a special appeal that is currently being considered. This decision aims to balance the interests of all parties involved and prevent last-minute disruptions that could affect the large number of candidates participating in the examination.
The bench, comprising Justice M.C. Tripathi and Justice A.K. Gupta, made this observation while hearing a special appeal filed by the UP Public Service Commission. The court noted that a previous order by a single judge had directed the commission to redraw the preliminary results. However, the division bench recognized the logistical and equitable concerns associated with altering examination schedules at such a late stage.
The court stated, “At this stage, this court feels that as the examination is going to be held on September 28, 2025, and since more than 7,000 candidates will be appearing in the said examination, any disturbance in the examination at the eleventh hour will result in chaos and injustice to the appearing candidates.”
Therefore, to ensure justice and maintain stability, the court decided that holding the examination on the scheduled dates was in the best interest of the candidates. The final results, however, will remain provisional until the special appeal is resolved.
This ruling follows a single bench’s directive to the UPPSC to revise its preliminary exam results for the 2024 Combined State Engineering Services recruitment, based on the principle of migration applying even at the initial screening stages. The preliminary exam results, declared on May 26, 2025, had seen 7,358 candidates shortlisted for the main exam against 609 vacancies, which was short of the advertised requirement of 15 times the vacancies (9,135 candidates).
The controversy stemmed from the UPPSC’s method of publishing results strictly category-wise, which reserved category candidates argued unfairly excluded meritorious individuals who had scored higher than the unreserved cutoff but were not included in the open list. The UPPSC had maintained that it followed reservation norms and its policy permitted migration only at the final stage.