Delhi High Court JJA Cut-Off 2026 vs 2020: Every Category, Revised

The Delhi High Court published the Stage-I (prelim) result of the Junior Judicial Assistant/Restorer (Open) Examination 2026 on 25 April 2026, and then changed two of its cut-offs on 8 September 2026. The EWS cut-off, first printed at 96.666 — higher than General — is now to be “read as 93.333”, and the single PwBD cut-off was replaced by four sub-category cut-offs. Many pages still show the April numbers. This guide sets out the current cut-offs exactly as the court printed them, compares them with the only other official JJA cut-off series (the 2020 exam), and explains what the numbers mean for the Main on 4 October 2026 and for the next cycle.

Delhi High Court Notice No.47 (25.04.2026) and No.82 (08.09.2026).

Two things stand out. First, the General cut-off of 93.333 is 33 marks above the qualifying minimum of 60. The minimum decides nothing in practice: the court calls fifteen times the vacancies in each category to the Main, so the real cut-off is wherever the 930th General candidate landed. Second, the Locomotor PwBD cut-off (78.245) is higher than the others because there is one vacancy and fifteen places; a sub-category with more vacancies and fewer applicants closes near the 54-mark minimum.

In April the EWS cut-off (96.666) sat three marks above General (93.333). That happens when a small category with few seats is crowded: EWS had 12 vacancies, so its fifteen-times list stopped at 180 names, and 2,481 EWS candidates sat the paper. The General list ran to 930 names among 12,994. The September notice ended the anomaly by reading the EWS cut-off as 93.333 — equal to General — “as directed by the Competent Authority”. The court did not give a reason in the notice, and it did not publish how many extra EWS candidates entered the Main list. If you are an EWS candidate who scored between 93.333 and 96.666, check your status on the result link in Notice No.82 rather than relying on the April list.

Read the chart as odds. About one General candidate in fourteen who sat the prelim reached the Main; for ST it was about one in six. The Main then cuts again: only six times the vacancies in each category go on to the typing test, and merit is decided on the Main (100) plus the interview (15). At the Main, about 15 candidates per vacancy were called (roughly 14 others per seat); among those who reach the typing test it is roughly five others per seat.

Every main category — General, EWS, OBC, SC and ST — rose by more than eleven marks. Three reasons are visible in the notices themselves, and none needs guessing. The General age limit rose from 27 to 32 (in 2020 it was 30 for OBC-NCL and 32 for SC/ST), widening the pool; the post moved from Level 5, Group C to Level 6, Group B, making it more attractive; and there had been no JJA open exam for six years, so candidates had piled up. The 2020 paper was an OMR test and the 2026 paper a computer-based test, so the two sets are not strictly comparable — but a jump of this size is not a normalisation artefact.

The prelim cut-off is a gate, not a score you keep. From here the only marks that decide a seat are the Main (100) and the interview (15). The Main is on Sunday 4 October 2026 in Delhi-NCR (Notice No.83); an earlier date of 24 May 2026 was cancelled by Notice No.51. Admit cards were released on 29 September 2026: the court's notice links to a candidate login on cdn.digialm.com (the exam agency's portal), where the card shows your centre and reporting time. The typing and interview dates were not announced by 28 September 2026. In 2020 the interview carried 25 marks with a minimum; in 2026 it carries 15 with no minimum, so the Main weighs more than it ever has.

If the next JJA notice keeps the 2026 pattern, a General candidate should treat 95 or more out of 120 as the safe prelim target — two marks above the last cut-off — and ST candidates about 80. That is our reading of one data point, not a prediction. What is certain is the arithmetic of the paper: with −0.25 per wrong answer, 98 right and 12 wrong gives 95, while 100 right and 20 wrong gives 95 too. Accuracy buys as much as speed. English (45 questions) and General Awareness (45) carry three-quarters of the marks, and Reasoning and Arithmetic the other 30.