The Patna High Court heard the writ petition challenging the 70th Combined Competitive Examination (Preliminary) conducted by the Bihar Public Service Commission (BPSC) on 13 December 2024, on the basis of alleged paper leak, on Thursday.

The petition was filed by Pappu Kumar and other candidates, who made the demand to cancel the examination and conduct the examination afresh.

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The BPSC aspirants protesting over the issue took a sigh of relief as Justice Arvind Singh Chandel heard the petition and directed the state government and the BPSC to clarify the situation by filing an affidavit by 30 January.

Justice Chandel refused to grant any interim relief to the petitioners who had requested the court to direct the BPSC not to publish the result of the 70th Preliminary Test.

However, he clarified that the result of the examination conducted by the commission will be subject matter of the final outcome of this petition.

Next hearing will be held on 31 January.

Earlier, there was a heated argument between lawyers representing the petitioners and the government before the single bench of Justice Arvind Singh Chandel.

Appearing for the petitioners, senior counsel YV Giri raised the issue saying that the question paper had been leaked, several candidates were not given the question papers. He highlighted that the irregularities were not only confined to the Bapu Sabhagar in Patna, but also incurred at about 28 different examination centres. He also stressed that the procedure, as laid down in the SOP, was not followed.

Senior counsel appearing for the BPSC as well as the Advocate General appearing for the State opposed the argument.

Appearing on behalf of the BPSC, senior advocate Lalit Kishor said that none of the candidates who appeared in the examination on the centres, mentioned in the petition, have made any complaint to the BPSC regarding any irregularities nor any of them have filed any affidavit in support of these facts. He also argued that the allegation of paper leak was baseless.

Advocate General P K Shahi said that one PIL has also been filed on this issue, therefore, it would be appropriate to hear the present matter by the same Bench who will hear the said PIL.

Next hearing will be held on 31 January.