Ranchi, April 8: More than 9,000 candidates were today declared to have passed the preliminary stage of the first combined civil services examination in the state, conducted by the Jharkhand Public Service Commission (JPSC) in August 2003 and January 2004. Around 1.46 lakh candidates had taken the examination.

The main examination is likely to be held in the first fortnight of June, said JPSC secretary, Alice Usharani Singh. All successful candidates, she said, are required to submit fresh application forms in the prescribed format by May 9.

The candidates will also be required to submit attested matriculation certificates along with date of birth and other relevant caste and domicile certificates, if required.

However, those candidates who had applied earlier with the relevant certificates for appearing in the main examination, she said, need not apply afresh.

The jinxed exam was first held in August, 2003 but following complaints of question paper leaks, it was conducted again in January 2004.

In April last year the JPSC had released a list of 5,245 candidates who were declared to have passed the preliminary stage. But the result was challenged in court by some of the unsuccessful candidates who pointed out that though they belonged to reserved categories, the JPSC had clubbed them under the ?general? category only because their addresses were outside the state.

The high court thereafter ordered the JPSC to publish a revised list after uniformly applying the reservation criteria without discriminating between residents and non-residents. The court also fixed different cut-off marks.

The exercise, explained the JPSC secretary, has resulted in the inclusion of over 4,000 fresh candidates, most of them in the reserved categories, in the original list of successful candidates.