Jharkhand HC cancels merit list of sixth JPSC Civil Services Exam

RANCHI: In yet another embarrassment, the Jharkhand High Court cancelled the merit list of the 6th Jharkhand Public Service Commission (JPSC) Civil Services Examination which was declared on April 23, 2020 to fill up 326 posts in various departments of the state government.

Justice SK Dwivedi, while hearing a bunch of petitions filed by candidates challenging the JPSC result,
directed the JPSC to declare fresh merit list within 8 weeks and hand it over to the state government. The Court further directed the JPSC that the state government will allot cadres to the candidates within four week accordingly.

Observing that the merit list is not in accordance with the established rules of the JPSC, the Court pointed out that the qualifying mark of the qualifying subject (Hindi-English) was also added while preparing the merit list, whereas examination rules of the JPSC specifically ruled out that qualifying marks can be counted in any way for the final selection.

Terming the decision as historical, the petitioner's advocate and former Advocate-General Ajit Kumar said that the Court has passed an order for quashing the merit list and now as per the directions of the court, the merit list has to be revised by way of correctly applying the conditions with respect to paper-I and clause (13) with respect to qualifying marks for each papers and category wise candidates.

"This judgment is beneficial of the permanent residents of Jharkhand who are basically studying in Hindi medium schools and paper-I was made to be qualifying for that purpose only.  For the first time, the High Court has passed orders for fixing responsibility upon the erring officers, this is unprecedented and historical," said the former AG.

Terming it a case of gross misconduct that the merit list was prepared by violating the law by the JPSC, the Court has directed the competent authority to fix responsibility on the erring officials and take action against them so that the same is not repeated in the future, he added.

According to Kumar, the judgment is likely to impact the fate of candidates who have already joined the service.

"The new merit list will change the result, as there are chances that some candidates, who earlier qualified the exams, may not get through this time. There are also chances that cadres of some successful candidates may change after the new merit list is published," said the former AG, who pleaded the case on behalf of some petitioners.

Notably, the result was challenged before the court on various grounds like discrepancy in the merit list, violation of reservation policy among others. The court had conducted the final hearing from February 3 to February 17, and the judgment was kept reserved.