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Short range order in a series of metallic glasses ((Fe1 − xCox)85B15 in as-received as well as structurally relaxed states has been studied using X-ray diffraction and Mössbauer spectroscopy. It is found that the structural relaxation associated with thermal annealing at 275 °C for 6 h does not cause any significant change in the topological short range order, while it results in substantial change in the chemical short range order in the system. In the annealed specimens, anomalies in the chemical short range order are observed around relative cobalt concentrations of 27 and 47%. Present study support the earlier conjecture that iron preferentially occupies the sites with less number of boron near-neighbours.