The Supreme Court dismissed an appeal challenging a Jharkhand High Court order directing the state public service commission to revise the results of the preliminary exam (PE) of the Combined Civil Services held in 2016.

A bench of Justice Indu Malhotra and Justice Ajay Rastogi said there was no ground to interfere with the impugned judgment passed by the high court.

The apex court was hearing an appeal filed by Dipak Kumar and others challenging the October 21, 2019 HC order, which quashed the state’s resolution of February 12, 2018 and the revised results announced by JPSC on August 6, 2018 that held 34,634 candidates as successful.

JPSC had advertised the Combined Civil Services Competitive Examination, 2016, for filling up 326 civil services posts, with the rider that the number of posts could change and the number of aspirants selected for main exams would be about 15 times the vacancies in various categories.

The PE was held on December 18, 2016, and the results were published on February 23, 2017, declaring 5,138 candidates to be successful.

Then, a plea was filed in the high court by a reserved category candidate saying those with fewer marks than him were declared successful in the unreserved category.

The state government resolved that reserved-category candidates with equal to or more marks than the last selected candidate in the unreserved category should be allowed in the main exams. Following this, 6,103 candidates were declared successful on August 11, 2017. Then, in August 2018, the second revised results of PE declared 34,634 candidates as successful.

Some angry aspirants moved high court. The high court quashed the last resolution and results and directed the JPSC to publish the results of the main exams, limited to those declared successful in its first revised results declared in August 2017.