Results of the 14th JPSC prelims in July 2026 triggered massive protests over irregularities and corruption. On 21 July, CID and Ranchi Police raided Jharkhand Public Service Commission headquarters and TSR Data Processing Private Limited (TDPL). Many senior officials of JPSC were arrested. A state government officer named Abhay Tiwari alias Manoj Tiwari was arrested, and JPSC chairman L. Khiangte resigned on the next day. Students demanded a CBI probe even after the state offered to cancel the exam.
The article explains the entire fiasco of the JPSC scam and how one firm, TDPL, had captured the entire examination process. The most astonishing aspect of the case was that TDPL was given end-to-end control of the JPSC exam, registration, biometrics, papers, OMR scanning, marking and results by nomination, without any tender.
The firm had already been blacklisted in Uttar Pradesh after arrests in a 2018–19 VDO recruitment case, and the Jharkhand Staff Selection Commission had blacklisted it in 2025 for CGL exam misconduct. JPSC hired it anyway. Reports put the nomination price at about ₹2 crore plus a 20% cut from candidates.
The network ran in three layers. At prelims, some candidates left OMR sheets blank; TDPL staff later filled in answers. Fees were ₹5–6 lakh (general) and ₹2–3 lakh (reserved). At mains, paying candidates wrote in rented flats while out-of-state “experts” dictated answers; Forest Range Officer and Assistant Conservator of Forests slots cost around ₹40 lakh. At interview, names were steered to friendly boards for about ₹55 lakh. A full package of guaranteed selection was sold at about ₹70 lakh. Tiwari allegedly collected ₹5.8 crore from about 20 FRO/ACF aspirants. About 20 people have been arrested, including the former chairman, TDPL directors and JPSC staff.
The article reflects on why such examination scams have become a regular story in India. Millions of graduates in arts and social sciences have few private-sector options and treat a sarkari naukri as the only secure prize. That demand feeds coaching mafias, middlemen and captured exam bodies. A corrupt system encourages opening useless colleges that distribute useless degrees, and politics keeps reservation alive. Lack of employment and the social status attached to government jobs, with the added benefit of immunity and dreams of high earnings through the same corrupt system, have created a toxic loop that keeps swallowing millions of young men and women every year.
The details of the JPSC scam machinery and how the national craze for government jobs has created a toxic quagmire for India’s young men and women can be read in full in Chapter One Mag.
