In one of the largest chatbot-based IVRS surveys conducted in the twodecades-old state, Jharkhand chief minister Hemant Soren is taking suggestions from candidates who already appeared in the state staff selection commission on the recruitment policy.

Sources in the chief minister’s secretariat informed that a database has been prepared of all those candidates who had appeared in any of the competitive examinations conducted by the Jharkhand Staff Selection Commission (JSSC) and whose career has been in a quandary after Jharkhand High Court in December last year quashed the JSSC graduate level exam conduct amendment rules 2021.

“The database has been compiled of nearly 7 lakh candidates who had appeared in any of the exams conducted by JSSC after the formation of Hemant Soren’s government (in December 2019). A phone call is sent to all these candidates who are preceded by an SMS informing them of the phone call from the chief minister seeking their suggestions on the way forward in the recruitment policy. The feedback will be taken for a week and thereafter the government will take a call on the recruitment policy before the commencement of the budget session on February 27,” said sources.

The voice-recorded call has Soren informing that the government wants to start the recruitment process at the earliest but does not want to go to the Supreme Court to challenge the high court decision.

It asks the candidates to give their opinion on whether they should wait for the 1932 khatian (land-survey) based policy to determine domicile status to be included in the ninth schedule of the Constitution or make appointments based on the earlier 2016 planning policy (which had not been challenged in the court).

Significantly, Jharkhand Assembly had passed an act in which 1932 land survey record is considered as the basis to determine the domicile of the state in November last year and sent it to the governor for its nod with a rider that the Act would be implemented only after it is included in the ninth schedule of the Constitution to shield it from judicial scrutiny.

A bench of Jharkhand High Court had in December after a long hearing termed the rules of JSSC as unconstitutional and quashed it citing it as a violation of the provisions of Article 14 of the Indian Constitution. With this order, all the appointments were cancelled.

Soren at a public rally in Chatra continued to blame ‘outsiders’ for challenging the new recruitment policy.