The Supreme Court will on Monday hear a plea seeking a federal 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 headed by Chief Justice of India (CJI) Surya Kant will take up the petition filed by Harisharan Devgan, who has raised serious concerns about the integrity, fairness, and transparency of the April 19 preliminary examination.

The plea seeks an independent, impartial and time-bound Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe into the examination process, besides immediate preservation of physical and electronic records connected with it.

It comes against the backdrop of a 26-day agitation by job aspirants in Jharkhand over alleged irregularities in recruitment examinations. 

The protesters temporarily suspended their stir on August 19 after the Hemant Soren government cancelled 22 recruitment examinations and ordered probes into 23 others, giving the government two months to address their remaining concerns.

The protesters continued to insist on an independent CBI probe, making clear that the agitation had only been postponed and not called off permanently.

The Jharkhand High Court on August 20 stayed the government’s orders cancelling the 11th and 13th JPSC examinations and the appointments made pursuant to them, while seeking the state’s response.

Devgan’s petition comes after allegations surfaced following the declaration of the preliminary examination results on July 2. Among the issues cited is the circulation of a purported candidate-held carbon copy of an OMR sheet, which allegedly showed a discrepancy between the number of questions attempted by a candidate and the candidate’s qualification for the next stage.

The petition, filed through advocate Neema, does not claim that the document’s authenticity has been conclusively established, but says it warrants forensic examination.

The Jharkhand CID has registered a case concerning alleged irregularities in examinations conducted. It subsequently asked candidates who qualified in the preliminary examination to submit their carbon copies of Paper I and Paper II OMR sheets between July 30 and August 5.