Jharkhand Public Service Commission (JPSC) on Thursday released the cut-off marks for the recently-held preliminary tests for JPSC 7 to 10 following a series of protests by candidates against alleged anomalies in the exams.

According to a notification shared on the official website of JPSC, the cut-off marks for general category was 260. The cut-off marks for ST and SC categories were 230 and 238 respectively, while the cut-off for Economically Backward Class and Backward Class was 252. For Economically Weaker Section, the cut-off was 238.

The JPSC also answered at least 20 queries raised by aspirants during the several days of protests against alleged anomalies in the exams. The protesting students had alleged that one aspirant did not clear the test despite scoring 266 marks. Answering this query, the JPSC stated that the aspirant in question actually secured 240 marks, and thereby failed to clear the cut-off, which was 260 for his category.

In reply to the protestors’ accusation that many students who appeared for the tests at the same classroom and sat in sequence passed the tests, JPSC clarified that only two such instances were reported across Jharkhand.

“It is to be noted that 3.7 lakh candidates appeared for the examination. Given the scale of the examination, unforeseen circumstances arose in two of 15,000 classrooms, for which the candidates cannot be held responsible,” the JPSC stated, adding that the unforeseen circumstances were not due to any malpractices or cheating. Such students have been declared successful provisionally.

Several thousand JPSC aspirants staged protests across the state in the past couple of weeks citing favouritism and other anomalies in the exams. The protesting students claimed that some students could not clear the tests despite scoring more marks than the ones who passed.

The protesting candidates had also alleged that no specially-abled candidates were declared successful by the JPSC. In reply to this allegation, the JPSC on Thursday stated that at least 107 physically handicap candidates cleared the test against seven vacancies.

The JPSC also rubbished the protesting candidates’ claim that all the candidates appearing for the tests in some classrooms have passed. Many candidates had demanded cancellation of the recently-held exams, but the JPSC did not find it appropriate to comment on this in its latest communique. JPSC chairperson Amitabh Chaudhary was summoned by Governor Ramesh Bais on Wednesday, a day after some protesting JPSC aspirants were subjected to lathicharge at Morhabadi.