Lucknow: HC stalls hiring of 6,800 teachers on 69,000 vacancy rider

LUCKNOW: The 6,800 candidates selected as assistant basic teachers in the state got a jolt as the Lucknow bench of Allahabad High Court has restrained the government from appointing candidates exceeding 69,000 vacancies advertised on December 1, 2018.
The bench said that once all the advertised 69,000 posts of assistant teachers were filled, a fresh list of more candidates exceeding the advertised vacancies cannot be issued without conducting fresh selection for excess seats or removing same number of selected candidates who had lesser marks than these 6,800 candidates.
Passing the order, the bench of Justice Rajan Roy observed, "Now, it is for the State to decide what it has to do in the matter as it has created this situation, but one thing is very clear that persons cannot be appointed beyond 69,000 vacancies."
The bench passed the order on the writ petition filed by six petitioners, including Bharti Patel.
The court learned that all the 69,000 posts of assistant teachers had been filled but a controversy arose that certain reserved category candidates had secured more marks but were not selected. The state government issued a fresh list on January 5, 2022, to adjust them but it could not have been done as the list contained 6,800 candidates exceeding total advertised 69,000 posts.
Advocate General Raghvendra Singh assisted by additional chief standing counsel Ranvijai Singh argued that government after revisiting the matter took a decision to issue another selection list of 6,800 candidates from reserved category who had secured higher marks than the cut-off for the unreserved category as per the orders passed by this very court, therefore, the court should not interfere in the matter at this stage.
Declining the argument, the bench said, "The court had only asked the State to file counter affidavit to explain how the reservation policy was implemented. The appropriate course for the officials was to comply the said orders, revisit the matter, find out the facts and errors, if any, and on noticing them, to place the same before the court either seeking its guidance or permission to rectify the list or to modify it and disengage the persons already appointed, if it was erroneous, as per law, but, the officials instead, for reasons best known to them, hurried to issue a list of 6,800 persons over the 69,000 appointments already made without disengaging or cancelling the appointment of 6,800 candidates if they had secured less marks."