The Supreme Court on Monday sought the Jharkhand government’s response on a plea seeking a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe into alleged irregularities in the Jharkhand Combined Civil Services Preliminary Competitive Examination-2025, conducted by the Jharkhand Public Service Commission (JPSC) for recruitment to 103 posts.
A bench, comprising Chief Justice of India Surya Kant and justices Joymalya Bagchi and V Mohana issued notice to the state government and asked its counsel to obtain instructions and respond on the next date of hearing. Notices were also issued to the JPSC, Jharkhand Staff Selection Commission (JSSC), the Centre and the CBI. The protesters, however, continued to demand an independent CBI probe.
The top court’s willingness to examine the plea comes amid a wider controversy over recruitment examinations in Jharkhand where job aspirants staged a 26-day agitation over alleged irregularities in various examinations. They suspended the protest on August 19 after the Hemant Soren government cancelled 22 recruitment examinations and ordered probes into 23 others.
On August 20, the Jharkhand High Court stayed the government’s orders cancelling the 11th and 13th JPSC examinations and appointments made pursuant to them, while seeking the state’s response. Devgan has argued that the allegations warrant scrutiny of the entire examination chain — from preparation, printing, storage and transportation of question papers to the conduct of the examination, custody and scanning of OMR sheets, evaluation and generation of the final results. The petitioner has contended that the investigation must establish whether any irregularity was isolated or systemic, candidate-specific or centre-specific, and whether tainted and untainted candidates can be reliably identified.
Senior advocate Manan Kumar Mishra, appearing for petitioner Harisharan Devgan, told the bench that students had been protesting and were seeking a CBI investigation into the alleged irregularities under the supervision of a retired judge.
