Jharkhand Public Service Commission (JPSC) on Thursday published revised results of preliminary tests of 7th to 10th state civil service examinations and announced that the mains would be held from March 11 to 13 in two sittings at various locations in Ranchi.

As per the revised list, close to 600 more have passed. According to the results, which were uploaded on the JPSC website in the evening, as many as 4,885 were declared passed in the preliminaries compared to the earlier 4,293.

According to the revised list, 1,552 candidates have qualified in the general category, 362 in the scheduled castes (SC) category, 1,002 in the scheduled tribe (ST) category, 994 in the extremely backward class (EBC)-1 category, 681 in the backward class (BC)-II category and 294 in the economically weaker section (EWS) category.

JPSC held the preliminary tests in September last year and published the results on November 1. But the exam process soon ran into a controversy as several aspirants alleged anomalies in the results and irregularities in the conduct of exams. Even though JPSC had earlier ruled out any lapses or wrongdoings, hundreds of aspirants resorted to an agitation on the streets during December last year.

The Opposition BJP also backed the protestors and demanded that the state government order a probe into the affairs of the JPSC either by CBI or a sitting high court judge. The saffron camp also approached governor Ramesh Bais, asking him to intervene. The state government declined to step in, stating JPSC was an autonomous body.

Meanwhile, a group of applicanst filed a PIL in Jharkhand High Court seeking scrapping of the exams citing lapses in compliance of the reservation policy. While the court did not annull the exams, JPSC later filed an affidavit in court stating that it wanted to evaluate the results and hence wanted the exams postponed.

Last week, JPSC sought permission from the high court to publish fresh results. The court gave its nod on Tuesday after whoihc JPSC published the results today.