Wherever two or more candidates, secure equal marks in aggregate tie-breaking rules are used to decide the merit of each candidate. Every organization follows certain rules for deciding the inter se merit in such cases.
Likewise, for the Civil Services exam the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) resolves tie cases on the basis of scores or marks and the age of the candidates.
In the two-filter tie-breaking rules the Commission uses the scores first and the age criteria next. UPSC is solely responsible to select and recommend candidates for recruitment to the Indian Administrative Service (IAS), Indian Foreign Service (IFS), Indian Police Service (IPS) and other Central Services and posts.
The marks obtained in the preliminary examination is not considered for the final ranking in Civil Services exam.
Candidates securing more marks in the compulsory or common papers and the personality test, put together, will be ranked higher if two or more candidates have secured the same overall marks.
If the calculated marks are same for the candidates, then the Commission would rank the candidates on the basis of age. The candidate senior in age will be ranked higher.
Until 2018, there was a third filter according to which in case both the above filters fail to resolve the case, candidate who has obtain more marks in the compulsory paper will be ranked higher.
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However the third filter has not been included by the UPSC in its new tie-breaking rules, which were announced on February 26.
The UPSC has released tie-breaking rules for various exams it conducts. UPSC said these revised tie principles would be applicable for the examinations or recruitment tests notified after August 28, 2019 (i.e., the date of approval by the Commission).
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Engineering Services exam, Combined Geo-Scientist exam, Combined Defence Services exam, National Defence Academy & Naval Academy exams and Civil Services exam have been notified by UPSC after August 28
