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 petitioner was required to submit information to the queries, which are as follows:

(A) Column No. 25 (a)- “How many times have you appeared at the Civil Services (Preliminary) Examination held in 1979 and thereafter including the current Examination held in May, 2007.

(Write 1,2,3,4,5.........etc in the opposite box as the case may be).”

(B) Column No. 25 (b)- “If you have already appeared at the Civil Services (Preliminary) Examination held by the UPSC in 1979 or thereafter write in boxes opposite the year or years of examination in which you appeared thereat in ascending chronological order.”

(C) Column 27—

“Particulars of U.P.S.C Examination/Recruitments by Selection applied for /appeared (including the Civil Service Examination)

4. The petitioner in response to the query in column 25(a) mentioned 7; and in response to the query in column 25 (b) mentioned ’01, “02, ’03, “04, “05, “06 and “07, meaning thereby that he appeared in the examinations of the years 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006 and 2007. Whereas, column 27 was left blank by the petitioner.

5. The petitioner thereafter gave Civil Services (Main) Examination, 2007. His result, however, was not declared and instead a show cause notice dated 26.2.2008 was issued by the Under Secretary to the Union Public Service Commission, thereby calling for an explanation from the petitioner as to why action should not be taken against him under Rules 4 and 14 of the Rules for the Civil Services (Main) Examination, 2007 for giving incorrect / incomplete information with regards to the attempts that the petitioner had taken in the Civil Services Examinations held by the Union Public Service Commission. In the notice it was stated that against Column 25 (a), the petitioner had mentioned the number of attempts as 07 and the indicated years against Column No. 25 (b) were mentioned as 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006 and 2007 whereas the information required by Column No. 27 was not provided. The notice stated that upon verification of the records it was found that the petitioner had already taken 7 attempts prior to the attempt in the year, 2007 and that the years in which the attempts were taken were 1999, 2000, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005 and 2006 whereas, the information given by the petitioner that he had taken an attempt in the year 2001 was not found corroborated from the records. Accordingly, it was stated in the notice, as follows:

“(a) You, therefore, seem to have knowingly suppressed in your application the information regarding your previous candidature for the Civil Services (Pre) Examination held in 1999 and 2000; (b) Made mis-statements in your application regarding your previous candidature above in order to gain unauthorized admission to the Civil Services Examination, 2007.”

6. The petitione