In interim relief to 326 candidates who were declared successful in the sixth civil services exam conducted by Jharkhand Public Service Commission (JPSC), the division bench of the Jharkhand high court (HC) on Tuesday ordered status quo after hearing a bunch of petitions challenging the court’s earlier verdict in June.
Delivering its verdict on a writ petition against the published result, the single bench on this June 7 quashed the merit list of the sixth civil services examination through which 326 candidates were appointed in different cadre jobs. The HC at the time also directed the commission to issue a fresh merit list after making the required corrections within eight weeks.
The HC bench earlier found that the JPSC committed error by adding marks obtained by the candidates in mains qualifying papers (Hindi and English) to prepare the final merit list. It also directed the state government to make cadre allocation of the successful candidates as per the new revised list within next four weeks.
However, the verdict was challenged by several successful candidates, pleading that the declared result was as per the exam rules published in the advertisement issued by the JPSC. On Tuesday, the division bench of chief justice Dr Ravi Ranjan and Sujit Narayan Prasad ordered status quo in the matter.
“After hearing our argument, the court has ordered a status quo till the next hearing on September 28. The court has also ordered to send notices to all concerned, including those who filed writ petition challenging the result, besides the state government and the JPSC,” said Sandeep Gadodia, counsel for successful candidate Shishir Tigga and 45 others.
Senior Supreme Court lawyer Prashant Bhushan and senior counsel Anil Sinha also argued on behalf of other applicants, who filed separate petitions.
Gadodia said they argued that the merit list was prepared as per the published job advertisement. “The advertisement clearly mentioned that the total marks of the mains papers adds to 1,050, including the first paper (Hindi and English). Accordingly, marks of paper one was added while preparing the merit list,” he said.
The counsel further argued that even if there was any ambiguity in the advertisement, the benefits went to all candidates, including the unsuccessful ones. “The result has been published as per the advertisement. Moreover, it’s not as if the marks of paper one (Hindi and English) were only added to the marks of the successful candidates,” said Gadodia.
