In a major blow to 269 successful candidates of Jharkhand Public Service Commission Civil Services Examination, the Jharkhand High Court on Wednesday put their appointments on hold till further hearing on March 30.
Hearing a PIl filed by one Vivek Kumar Singh seeking his appointment under blind category, the court has asked the State Government to reveal how many vacancies were there for physically challenged persons in fourth and fifth JPSC Civil Services Examination.
"The court has put the appointment of all 269 candidates on hold till March 30, when the case will be heard next," said the respondent's advocate Sanjay Piparwar.
Meanwhile, all the three cases, PIl filed by PK Siddhartha, writ of Avadh Kishore Mehra and three others challenging rejection of their OMR sheets and lPA of Vivek Kumar Singh seeking his appointment under blind category were clubbed together by the court.
The Division Bench of Chief Justice Virender Singh and Justice S Chandrashekher, after looking at the three-page note submitted by PK Siddhartha on Tuesday observed in the open court that it made a strong case against JPSC. The court also appreciated the hard work done to file the PIl.
Alleged discrepancies in the 5th State Civil Services Examinations conducted by JPSC has also created a huge uproar in the Assembly as demands of cancellation and initiating a probe into the examination process dominated sessions of the Assembly leading to adjournments of proceedings. The Opposition leaders raising their demands even protested outside the House with placards raising slogans against the Government.
The Opposition has been demanding that the examinations results announced by JPSC should be postponed till a decision comes from the Jharkhand High Court in this regard.
The State Government has also constituted a high-level Advisory Committee on March 3 headed by Saryu Roy along with Alamgir Alam, Stephen Marandi, Pradeep Yadav, Radha Krishna Kishore and Raj Kishore Mahto as members.
The panel is supposed to look into details of the examination system being adopted by the JPSC and also by the Jharkhand Staff Selection Commission for various posts. The committee was to submit its recommendations within 15 days.
However, Opposition leaders have distanced themselves from the panel, questioning the intentions of the Government.