In Brief
The Supreme Court overturned a High Court decision that had invalidated the merit list of the 6th Jharkhand Combined Civil Services Examination (2016). The dispute centred on whether marks obtained in Paper-I (General Hindi & English) should be added to the total marks when preparing the merit list, or whether minimum qualifying marks in each paper separately should be applied. Both the recruitment rules (Rules, 1951) and advertisement contained ambiguity. The Court held both interpretations were plausible. It upheld the Commission's practice of using aggregate total marks (1050), reasoning that: long-established practice must not be unsettled lightly; candidates had relied on it in good faith; 326 candidates were appointed and had worked for nearly two years with completed probation; and the High Court had improperly applied a preliminary examination precedent to the main examination scheme. The appeals were allowed and the High Court judgment was set aside.
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