UPSC Civil Services Exam: No difference in Attempts & Age criteria based on Religion - FACTLY
Sai Krishna Muthyanolla
September 14, 2020
A post is being shared widely on social media with a claim that Hindus can give only six attempts in UPSC Civils Services Examination whereas Muslims can give nine attempts. It is also being claimed that the maximum age limit for Hindus is 32 years whereas it is 35 years for Muslims. Let’s fact-check the claim made in the post.
For writing the UPSC Civil Services Exam, the age-limits for Hindus and Muslims are 32 years and 35 years, respectively. Also, the number of attempts are six and nine, respectively.
Fact: There is no such discrimination between Hindus and Muslims in the eligibility criteria for writing the UPSC Civil Services Exam. No religion-based criteria are found in the official notification of the exam. There are only caste-based differences in the eligibility criteria. Hence the claim made in the post is FALSE.
When searched for the aforementioned differences in the official notification of UPSC Civil Services Examination 2020, no such religion-based differences were found. There is no mention of religion in the eligibility criteria. But there are some caste-based differences in the eligibility criteria. Also, there are few other exemptions but they are not based on religion.
Caste-based differences in the eligibility criteria can be seen in the table below:
Some sects/groups of Muslims are also in the Central list of OBCs. So, Muslims and Hindus, who are in the OBC list, can attempt the exam nine times and have the age-limit up to 35. So, the aforementioned criteria are not limited to OBC Muslims only. The Muslim castes/communities placed in the Central list of OBCs with respect to Telangana can be seen below:
The image in the post is from a program telecast by ‘Sudarshan News’. The related video can be watched here. In the video, the anchor mentions that the Muslims taking reservation benefits have the age-limit up to 35 and are getting 9 attempts.
To sum it up, there are no separate eligibility criteria based on religion in the UPSC Civil Services Examination.