applied to an ongoing recruitment process. This prompted several challenges before the High Court of Madhya Pradesh at Jabalpur resulting in a spate of orders and directions leading up to these cases before us. 3. The Madhya Pradesh Public Service Commission (MPPSC) issued an advertisement on 14.11.2019 proposing to select candidates for 571 posts in the State services in accordance with the Madhya Pradesh State Service Examination Rules, 2015 (for brevity, ‘the Rules of 2015’). The Rules of 2015 were framed in exercise of power under the proviso to Article 309 of the Constitution of India. The Madhya Pradesh State Service Examination-2019 was scheduled to be held by the MPPSC for filling up these posts, by conducting a preliminary examination followed by the main examination and interviews. The preliminary examination took place on 12.01.2020. The total number of candidates who registered for the preliminary examination stood at 3,64,877 but only 3,18,130 of them actually appeared