HYDERABAD: In a relief to scores of Vidya Volunteers, the Telangana High Court has directed the State government to continue the services of Vidya Volunteers till the appointment of regular teachers to those posts or the vacancies cease to exist. The court also directed the government to assess the situation of requirement of Vidya Volunteers against regular vacancies for the academic year 2019-20 and then engage the volunteers working as on date. “A temporary employee cannot be replaced by another temporary employee till regular employee joins the duty,’’ the court noted.
Justice Abhinand Kumar Shavili was passing this order recently in batch of petitions filed by J Biksham and several other Vidya Volunteers seeking a direction to Telangana government to stop the practice of annual termination and forcing them to undergo fresh recruitment process every year.
They urged the court to issue directions to the government to renew their services every year till regular teachers were appointed to the posts.
Petitioners’ counsels NS Arjun Kumar and AVVS Bhujanga Rao told the court that there were about 16,000 Vidya Volunteers working in government schools and they were appointed on ad hoc basis. These volunteers were engaged to the posts through an open online application system. There has been no recruitment of regular teachers since 2012.