Supreme Court Seeks Centre, Jharkhand Response On JPSC CBI Probe Plea

The Supreme Court on Monday issued notice on a plea seeking transfer of the investigation into alleged irregularities in the Jharkhand Combined Civil Services Preliminary Examination-2025 from the state police’s Criminal Investigation Department (CID) to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). The matter was heard by a bench comprising Chief Justice of India Surya Kant and Justices Joymalya Bagchi and V. Mohana.

The petition was filed by social activist Harisharan Devgan, who has sought an independent, impartial, comprehensive and time-bound CBI investigation into alleged irregularities and malpractice in the preliminary examination conducted by the Jharkhand Public Service Commission (JPSC) on April 19. The plea argues that the allegations require examination of the wider recruitment process, including the possible involvement of officials, examination-centre personnel, technical agencies, scanning and evaluation agencies and other service providers.

The petition points out that the state CID has already registered a case and, during its investigation, asked successful candidates to provide their Paper-I and Paper-II OMR carbon copies. According to the plea, these candidate-held copies could be independently compared with original OMR sheets, scanned images, coding and decoding records, evaluation data and result-generation records maintained by the JPSC and its service providers. The petitioner has argued that such comparisons could help establish whether and how the examination process may have been compromised.

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The plea further contends that the subsequent cancellation of the preliminary examination does not remove the need for an independent investigation. It seeks to determine whether the examination process was compromised, the manner in which the alleged irregularities occurred and the persons or agencies responsible, if any. The petitioner has maintained that the request for a CBI probe is not based on allegations against individual CID officers, but on the nature and scale of the allegations and the need for an agency independent of the state machinery connected with the examination.

The petitioner has also sought immediate preservation and secure custody of all original physical and electronic examination records. These include OMR sheets, candidate-held carbon copies, question papers, answer keys, attendance and biometric records, CCTV footage, examination-centre documents, scanning and coding records, evaluation data, server records, audit trails and result-generation information. The plea has warned that electronic records may have limited retention periods and could be altered, overwritten or deleted over time, making timely preservation important for the investigation.

The respondents named in the petition include the Union of India, JPSC, Jharkhand Staff Selection Commission, the state of Jharkhand, the CBI and the Director General of Police, Criminal Investigation Department, Jharkhand. Senior advocate and Bar Council of India Chairman Manan Kumar Mishra and advocate Satyam Singh Rajput appeared for the petitioner. The Supreme Court’s notice marks the latest development in the legal challenge seeking an independent probe into the alleged irregularities surrounding the JPSC preliminary examination.

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