HC scraps Jharkhand govt’s new rules for JSSC exams, Soren hits out

The Jharkhand high court on Friday scrapped the Jharkhand Staff Selection Commission (JSSC) Examination (Amendment) Rules 2021 that made it mandatory for applicants to clear classes 10 and 12 from state schools.

The commission had also excluded Hindu and English from the list of regional language papers and made languages such as Urdu, Bengali and Odia part of it. The state cabinet had given its nod to the amendments on August 5, 2021.

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A bench of chief justice Ravi Ranjan and justice Sujit Narayan Prasad was hearing a petition against the amendments when it said they were violative of the Constitution, former advocate general Ajit Kumar, who appeared for the petitioner, said.

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“The bench said the amended rules were violative of the principles of equality under Article 14 and 16 of the Constitution. Describing the rules as bad in law, the bench directed JSSC to come up with a new set of advertisement for all job examinations that it might have or is conducting on the basis of these two amended rules,” Kumar said.

Chief minister Hemant Soren termed the judgment “unfortunate”.

“It is unfortunate. There are such rules in other states as well. We will take legal opinion over the issue. Rest be assured that we will protect the interest of the Jharkhandis,” he said.