Plea against J'khand HC order on 2016 JPSC PE dismissed

The Supreme Court dismissed an appeal against a Jharkhand High Court order, which directed the State Public Service Commission to modify results of the preliminary exam (PE) of the Combined Civil Services 2016.

A bench comprising Justices Indu Malhotra and Ajay Rastogi said no merit was made out to interfere with the High Court order, and dismissed the petition.

The top court was hearing an appeal filed by Dipak Kumar and others challenging the High Court order passed in October 2019, which quashed the state government resolution of February 12, 2018 and the revised results announced by JPSC in August, 2018, which announced 34,634 candidates as successful.

The JPSC published the advertisement for the Combined Civil Services Competitive Examination, 2016, to fill 326 posts in different civil services. The advertisement had a rider that the number of posts could be increased or decreased.

According to the process of selection based on the preliminary examination, the candidates selected for the main examination would be about 15 times the vacancies in different categories.

In December 2016, the PE was held, and 5138 candidates were declared successful in the result published in February 2017. A reserved category candidate moved the High Court saying those with fewer marks than his were declared successful in unreserved category.

Later, the government came out with a resolution on the issue stating reserved category candidates who got equal to, or more marks than the last selected candidate in unreserved category, would appear in the main exams. After implementation of this formula, 6,103 candidates were declared successful.

Later, the second revised list was published on the PE results wherein 34,634 candidates were declared successful. This was challenged in the High Court, which was dismissed.

The court also directed JPSC to publish the results of the main examination, confined to the candidates declared successful in its first revised results published in August 2017.IANS