The Jharkhand High Court on Tuesday reserved its order on the petition seeking to postpone the mains examination of the combined civil services examination set to be conducted by Jharkhand Public Service Commission (JPSC) from January 28. The matter came for hearing before the single bench of Justice Rajesh Shankar where the petitioner Shekhar Suman had raised objection over the result of the preliminary examination on various technical grounds including wrong answers and others.
Senior advocate Sanjay Piparwal appeared on behalf of the JPSC, whereas senior lawyer Rajesh Kumar who appeared on behalf of the petitioner requesting immediate intervention of the court as the JPSC has announced the date of the mains examination.
According to the schedule the mains examination will be held from January 28 to January 30.
Examination will be held at 14 centres across Jharkhand. This matter came for hearing last week also before the bench headed by Chief Justice Dr. Ravi Ranjan and Justice SN Prasad. However, the double bench refused to hear the case since this matter was being heard by the single bench. But, the bench of Chief Justice also directed the single bench to conclude the hearing and pass the order before January 28.
The JPSC issued a notification to hold a combined civil service examination comprising seventh, eighth, ninth, and tenth JPSC against 252 seats. A total of 4293 students from different categories were declared successful namely unreserved (1897), ST (1057), SC (389), OBC (244), EBC (401), and EWS 305. However, students raised questions over the examination process and the result as they alleged corruption in declaring preliminary results.
Students claimed that corruption was so glaring that a candidate of the general category who secured 148 marks was declared successful in the preliminary test. But, at the same time, another candidate who secured 260 marks was declared unsuccessful. They claimed that a total of 4293 students were declared successful for the preliminary examination. Out of this, there are 242 such candidates who have their roll number in a serial. They are from different examination centers in Lohardaga, Sahebganj, Latehar, and Gumla.