Jharkhand Cancels 22 Exams After Prolonged Student Protests

Chief Minister Hemant Soren and the Jharkhand government cancelled 22 recruitment examinations and voided the appointments of 2,628 candidates, including 342 officers, after a 24-day student agitation over paper leaks and corruption. The decision, announced following a marathon Cabinet meeting, scrapped the Jharkhand Staff Selection Commission-Combined Graduate Level (JSSC-CGL) exam and all tests conducted by the outsourced agency TSR Data Processing Private Limited (TDPL) since 2014.

The unrest peaked with a 16-day hunger strike led by student leader Devendra Nath Mahto and others at Ranchi's Jaipal Singh Munda Stadium. While the government's concessions ended the hunger strike, they triggered counter-protests from approximately 2,000 employees who had already secured positions through the JSSC-CGL process and now face termination.

To address systemic failures, Soren ordered a comprehensive inquiry into all recruitment errors since 2014, with the JPSC Civil Services probe supervised by a retired judge. The state also established an exam reforms committee led by IAS officer Amitabh Kaushal and will request the Jharkhand High Court to create a fast-track court for exam-related misconduct. Despite these moves, some student leaders maintain that the struggle continues, demanding a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe rather than the state-led Criminal Investigation Department (CID) inquiry.