Hon’ble Manoj Misra, J.—These two petitions of the same petitioner raises a short question that is, whether a candidate, who does not disclose correctly the number of attempts that he has taken in a competitive examination, in addition to the cancellation of his candidature for the concerned examination, could be debarred for a further period of 10 years from all the examinations to be conducted and selections to be made by the Public Service Commission.

2. The facts, in brief, are that the petitioner, who belongs to OBC category, was entitled to take 7 attempts in the Civil Services Examinations conducted by the Union Public Service Commission. For his candidature for the Civil Services (Pre) Examination, 2007 the petitioner was required to disclose the number of attempts that he had already taken. The petitioner in his application had disclosed that he had already taken six attempts. Thereafter the petitioner appeared in the Civil Services (Pre.) Examination, 2007, and was successful.

3. After qualifying the preliminary examination, the petitioner submitted his application form for the Civil Services (Main) Exam, 2007. In the application form for the Main Examination the