HC: All JSSC CGL, JPSC appointments cannot be treated as wrong together

The Jharkhand High Court has observed that all the appointments under the cancelled recruitments cannot be treated as wrong together.

The court made the distinction between procedural lapses in a process and the individual culpability of appointed candidates.

It also said that the state cannot remove appointees through a notification alone without following natural justice.

The interim stay on the cancellation of JPSC, JSSC CGL, CDPO and Food Safety Officer appointments continues.

The case will be heard next on October 7.

According to a Live Dainik report of the affidavit, the state said a JPSC exam and the resulting appointments take two to three years to complete.

The same report said the state argued that cancelling about 2,700 appointments in one stroke would lead to job losses for many state officers.

Senior advocate Meenakshi Arora and the Advocate General represented the state, and JPSC was represented by its own counsel.

Senior advocate Rajiv Ranjan, a former Advocate General of Jharkhand, appeared for the candidates along with several other advocates.

The petitioners were given time to file counter-affidavits, which the court has allowed within 10 days of receiving copies of the notices.

The next hearing has been fixed for October 7, 2026, at 11:30 am.

The court also appointed retired High Court judge Gautam Kumar Chaudhary to monitor the SIT investigation and hear candidates’ grievances.

The state government had announced the cancellations in August after weeks of student protests over alleged irregularities in the recruitment examinations.

A separate petition by activist Harisharan Devgan in the Supreme Court seeks a CBI probe, and the Supreme Court has issued notices to the Centre and the state on it.

Natural justice is the legal principle that a person must be heard, and given a chance to respond, before an adverse decision is taken against them.

High Court of Jharkhand, Ranchi, Wikimedia Commons, CC0