For candidates who spend years preparing for government recruitment exams, receiving an appointment letter can feel like the end of a long struggle. For Sanjit Kumar and Nupur Chandra, however, that moment has now turned into uncertainty.
Both had secured government jobs through the JSSC CGL recruitment process and were working at the Ranchi Secretariat. Following the cancellation of their appointments amid the ongoing controversy surrounding recruitment, they say they are no longer being allowed to enter their offices.
Sanjit’s journey towards a government job began in 2017. A resident of Chatra, he had earlier run a prasad shop outside a temple. Even after an earlier JSSC CGL examination was cancelled over allegations of a paper leak, he continued preparing.
He studied through the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown. In April 2023, he secured a railway job as a Pointsman in Guwahati. But he continued preparing for Jharkhand government recruitment because he wanted to work in his home state.
FROM RAILWAY JOB TO SECRETARIAT
The JSSC CGL notification was issued in 2023. Allegations of irregularities and subsequent legal proceedings delayed the recruitment.
Sanjit says he finally received his appointment letter in December 2025 and joined as an Assistant Section Officer in the Food Department at the Ranchi Secretariat.
His circumstances made the job particularly important. Sanjit had lost his father, while his mother is differently-abled. He married in 2025 and has a monthly SBI EMI of around Rs 15,000, apart from his mother’s medical expenses.
Now, he says, the job has disappeared almost overnight. “Until yesterday, I was working at the Secretariat, but today I am not being allowed to enter,” he says.
NUPUR LEFT A 10-YEAR CORPORATE CAREER
Nupur Chandra, from Ormanjhi near Ranchi, took a very different route. An electronics engineer, she worked at Infosys and two other multinational companies after being placed from college.
After spending nearly 10 years in the private sector in Pune, she decided to return to Jharkhand to be with her family and work in her home state.
Her father is retired, and her mother is a homemaker. Her elder brother had prepared for the UPSC examinations before starting a pharmacy after not succeeding.
Nupur eventually secured an Assistant Section Officer post in the Law Department through JSSC CGL.
She says she is now no longer allowed into the Secretariat and her employment has been terminated. “Even a private company gives at least three days’ notice, but here, the job was lost overnight,” she says.
TWO STORIES, ONE UNCERTAIN FUTURE
Sanjit and Nupur took different paths to the same government recruitment process. One continued preparing even after securing a Railway job; the other walked away from a decade-long corporate career to return home.
Both say their appointments came after a lengthy examination process and legal battles.
Now, with their appointments cancelled, both are waiting for clarity on whether they will retain their jobs and what happens to the careers they had rebuilt around them.
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