Revision summary
The clash is a scheduled UPSC interview versus two badly injured relatives who need help now. Life and rescue come first; the interview is a real but lesser good. Action is scene safety, emergency call, hospital handover, police information, then a truthful request to UPSC. Do not impersonate, bribe, or invent. Do not stay only to argue while they bleed. The same duty holds for a stranger; kinship removes the excuse of walking on.
Model answer
Introduction
The stem puts a life's work and two bleeding relatives on the same road. The ethical centre is the duty to rescue a life in front of you, not the duty to protect a timetable.
Body
Stakeholders
- The injured mother and child, who need first aid, transport and a hospital now.
- Other road users, if the scene is still dangerous.
- You as an aspirant, with an interview letter that will not easily be reissued as a right.
- Family members waiting at the UPSC venue and at home.
- The Union Public Service Commission, which can be told the truth later; it cannot un-kill a child.
- Bystanders who may help or may only film.
Ethical issues and values
- Sanctity of life and the duty of rescue: a person who can help and walks away treats kin as less than a career file.
- Justice and non-partiality: they are relatives, but the same duty would hold for a stranger; kinship only removes the last excuse of "someone else will stop".
- Integrity: do not invent a story later. Do not, equally, use the accident as a casual lie if it did not happen.
- Emotional intelligence: panic will waste minutes; a sequence will save them.
- The interview is a legitimate personal good. It is not a higher good than two preventable deaths.
Options
- Option 1: Drive on to the interview and telephone someone else to help.
- Merit: you may reach the board on time.
- Demerit: if they need you now — bleeding, blocked airway, no other competent adult — the call is not help. A career built on that choice is already a comment on public service.
- Option 2: Stay for hours in a crowd argument with police, missing both hospital and any chance to inform UPSC.
- Merit: looks loyal.
- Demerit: you may not be the best person to file the FIR; the hospital is the first institution that matters.
- Option 3: Immediate rescue: make the scene safe, first aid, ambulance or your vehicle to the nearest hospital, hand over to doctors, inform family and police, then inform UPSC with facts and seek a later board if the rules allow.
- Merit: life first, then the career through a truthful channel.
- Demerit: you may still miss this day's interview; that is a real loss, not a moral error.
Action I would take
- Stop. Park without causing a second crash. Switch on hazards. Keep the child and mother from further traffic.
- Call emergency services at once (108 / 112) while checking breathing and bleeding. Use any first-aid you truly know; do not play surgeon.
- Use bystanders for specific jobs: one to wave traffic, one to fetch a doctor if a clinic is in sight, one to call the other parent.
- If the ambulance is late and the injuries are clearly time-critical, take them to the nearest hospital yourself, with someone in the back if possible.
- Do not abandon them in a corridor. Hand over to medical staff, give names, and leave a reachable number.
- Inform the police with a true account. You are a relative and a witness; do not manage the scene as if you owned it.
- Then contact UPSC / the designated help number / a mentor with the hospital record and time stamps, request postponement or a fresh interview slot as the Commission's process allows, and accept a no if the rules give no discretion.
- Do not ask a friend to impersonate you at the gate. Do not bribe a clerk for a false attendance.
- If a stranger had been on the road, the sequence would be the same. Relatives only make delay more shameful, not more optional.
Justification
- Article 21 is not only for the State. A future civil servant who cannot stop for blood will not stop for a file that has no camera.
- Professional codes and the Good Samaritan principle, recognised in Indian policy after the Supreme Court's directions on road-accident helpers, protect a rescuer who acts in good faith.
- The personality test itself looks for integrity and compassion. Saving two lives is the test that arrived early.
- Career harm is a cost I should try to reduce through honest communication, not through neglect of the injured.
Flow diagram
flowchart TD SCENE[Accident on the way] --> STOP[Stop and make safe] STOP --> AID[First aid and 108] AID --> HOSP[Hospital handover] HOSP --> UPSC[Inform UPSC with proof] DRIVE[Drive past] --> CAREER[Maybe on time] DRIVE --> DEATH[Preventable death]
Conclusion
I would stop, stabilise, move them to a hospital, inform police and family, then tell UPSC the truth and ask for whatever lawful second chance exists. An interview can be petitioned. A death on the kerb cannot.
Quick related
Students also ask
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Next question in the 2017 paper (Q12). View answer →
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If many people have already stopped, must I still miss the interview?
If competent help is truly in charge and you add nothing, you may give your number and go. If they are still unattended or you are the only relative who can consent and carry, you stay.
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Will UPSC always give a new date?
There is no right to a new date. You still do not buy a board seat with two deaths. You tell the truth and take the Commission's decision.
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