A court in the Indian state of Jharkhand has reserved its ruling on the cancellation of a state recruitment exam.
The state cancelled the exam after a police investigation into irregularities.
About 2,700 successful candidates are affected.
The petitioners say the whole exam should not be cancelled.
No date has been announced for the judgment.
The state has described the examination system as suffering from systemic failure, and the court said it cannot ignore that aspect, according to ETV Bharat.
The petitioners argued that there is no proof that the paper leaked from an examination centre.
They said probable questions were given to 28 candidates in Nepal, of whom 10 were selected, and that the High Court’s order withholding those 10 results was upheld by the Supreme Court.
They said the SIT has been investigating for over two years without filing a chargesheet, according to ETV Bharat.
They argued that cancelling the entire exam without separating guilty and innocent candidates is improper.
On October 7, the court expressed concern for about 2,700 successful candidates and said that candidates selected on merit must receive justice.
The court also asked why the investigation had not been completed in three years, according to The Daily Jagran.
Aaj Tak reported that the court observed that the investigation report so far does not contain solid evidence that the paper leaked before the exam.
It also reported that the court noted that if large-scale cheating is proven, the whole exam can be cancelled under Supreme Court guidelines.
An intervenor’s lawyer, Kumar Harsh, told the court that the question paper had spread widely on WhatsApp and Telegram before the exam, according to Aaj Tak.
Other intervenors backed the cancellation, citing earlier Supreme Court and High Court rulings, according to Prabhat Khabar.
Petitioners were represented by lawyers including senior advocates Patwalia and Rajiv Ranjan, according to Aaj Tak.
Jharkhand High Court, Ranchi (file image), Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0