New Delhi, Aug 22: The Supreme Court has disposed of a petition filed by 35 candidates challenging their exclusion from the revised merit list of the Jharkhand Judicial Service Preliminary Examination, 2023, after the entire examination was cancelled.A bench comprising Chief Justice of India Surya Kant and Justices Joymalya Bagchi and V Mohana was informed during the hearing that the examination itself had been cancelled.
The candidates had challenged the revised Preliminary Examination Result-cum-Merit List issued by the Jharkhand Public Service Commission (JPSC) on June 5, 2026, for recruitment to the post of Civil Judge (Junior Division) under Advertisement No. 22/2023.The petitioners had earlier been declared successful in the preliminary examination in the merit list published on July 2, 2024.
They were subsequently excluded from the revised list after the JPSC recalculated marks following changes to the examination’s answer key.The preliminary examination was held on March 10, 2024, for 138 Civil Judge (Junior Division) posts. The JPSC had revised its model answer key several times following objections over certain questions.The dispute eventually reached the Supreme Court.
In February 2026, the apex court directed the prescribed administrative process to re-examine the disputed questions instead of allowing the High Court to independently act as an examination expert.Following the process, the JPSC issued a final answer key on June 1, deleting two disputed questions and changing the answer to another. It then recalculated candidates’ marks and issued a revised merit list on June 5.
The petitioners contended that candidates who had already qualified under the earlier merit list and submitted documents for the next stage should not have lost their qualifying status following the revision.
However, with the entire examination now cancelled, the Supreme Court held that the challenge to the revised merit list no longer required adjudication and disposed of the petition as infructuous.The order does not amount to a ruling on whether the candidates’ exclusion from the revised merit list was legally justified.
The cancellation of the examination is part of the Jharkhand government’s wider action concerning recruitment examinations amid allegations of irregularities.
Separately, a plea has also been filed before the Supreme Court seeking a CBI probe into alleged malpractices in another Jharkhand recruitment examination.
