Jharkhand high court scraps merit list for 6th civil services exam

RANCHI: The Jharkhand high court on Monday scrapped the merit list published by the Jharkhand Public Service Commission (JPSC) of the 326 successful candidates who cleared the sixth state civil services examination. The court also directed the JPSC to publish a fresh merit list within eight weeks and ordered the government to allocate cadres to the appointees within four weeks thereafter.
The court of Justice S K Diwedi heard as many as 16 petitions which were clubbed together challenging the merit list published by the JPSC.The petitions challenged the examinations on points of irregularities in the merit list, irregularity committed by the Commission in following the reservation norms and age-related discrepancies.
While the high court rejected the other petitions, it found substance in the petition filed by Dilip Kumar Singh, Pradeep Ram, Sumit Kumar Mahto, Mukesh Kumar, Ravikant Prasad and Ruby Sinha who challenged the merit list prepared by the Commission. The court had earlier this year heard the matter at length on February 17 and reserved its order in the matter which was delivered online on Monday.
After hearing the arguments, the high court in its order has mentioned that the JPSC flouted the rules to be followed while computing marks to prepare the merit list of the successful candidates. The merit list is important and crucial as it decides the allotment of cadre among the successful candidates.
However, the merit list had a serious anomaly as the JPSC while preparing the same had also computed the qualifying marks achieved by the candidates. This is contrary to the rules for preparing the merit list which has already been formulated by the Commission. The qualifying marks of candidates ought not to be included while adding their marks for preparation of the merit list, the court observed in its order.
The JPSC had conducted the sixth state civil services main examinations on February 28, 2019. The examinations were challenged by candidates before the high court on different counts and the high court in its order passed on October 21, 2019 ordered the JPSC to publish the results.
Thereafter, the JPSC published the result and declared 326 candidates successful in the exams. The Commission then prepared the merit list and sent its recommendation to the government on April 23, 2020 for allotment of cadre. The government then appointed the successful candidates on July 29, 2020 and sent them for training.