HYDERABAD: A division bench of the High Court on Friday directed the Telangana government to inform the court by Monday whether it would permit or not the candidates possessing Special B.Ed and D.Ed certificates to appear for the Teachers Recruitment Test (TRT) scheduled to be held in February next year for over 8,000 posts.
The bench of acting chief justice Ramesh Ranganathan and justice Abhinand Kumar Shavili gave this direction on a petition filed by D Bheema and 48 other aspirants to the recruitment, urging the court to declare as illegal and arbitrary the government not recognising/ qualifying the candidature of those holding B.Ed degree and D.Ed diploma in Special Education for direct recruitment to the posts of teachers in the government and local body schools in the state.
Petitioners’ counsel J Sridhar submitted that there were about 25,000 candidates possessing the above qualifications and teaching mentally-retarded, hearing and visually impaired and physically-challenged persons. In fact, the Rehabilitation Council of India had directed all the state governments in 2005 to treat special education on a par with the regular B.Ed and D.Ed courses. But the Telangana government ignored these candidates for recruitment, which is a violation of the fundamental rights, he pointed out and urged the court to issue directions to the state government to accept their applications as the last date for receipt of applications was November 30.
While expressing sympathies with the above candidates, the bench reminded that the Right to Free Education Act mandates compulsory education of all children and asked the government who would teach the physically challenged, deaf and dumb students if it did not consider the above candidates for TRT. The special children need greater attention and candidates qualified in special education and aspiring to become teachers should be encouraged, the bench observed and asked the state government to examine whether there was any chance for reviewing its decision in the interest of the aspiring candidates and to extend the last date for submission of application form in case they were permitted for the above test.
Additional advocate-general J Ramachandra Rao sought time to get instructions on from the government.