BENGALURU: The Karnataka High Court directed the Selection and Recruitment Authority cum Deputy Director of Public Instructions (ADM), Kalaburagi and Bidar Districts, to prepare a fresh list of candidates for the recruitment of graduate primary teachers for classes 6-8 in the Hyderabad-Karnataka (H-K) region.
The re-evaluation process must ignore the February 1, 2023 circular, but consider the directions issued by a coordinate bench in writ appeals in the case of Narendra Babu GV and others versus State of Karnataka and others. Selected candidates should be issued appointment orders within three months, the court ordered.
A division bench of Justice R Devdas and Justice Brungeesh M passed the order while allowing a batch of petitions filed by Nagappa and several others challenging the order dated January 31, 2024, passed by the Kalaburagi bench of the Karnataka State Administrative Tribunal.
The court quashed the circular dated February 1, 2023, issued by the Department of Personnel and Administrative Reforms (Service Rules-1). “Since most of the H-K region candidates opted for local cadre posts, the writ petitioners were selected in the provisional list.
Now, by virtue of the circular issued during the course of the recruitment, the writ petitioners who were earlier selected in the provisional list are now removed from the list and some of the so-called meritorious candidates from the H-K region have been favoured in their place.
This is clearly arbitrary and opposed to the principles enshrined in Articles 14 and 16 of the constitution”, the court observed.
The court noted that the issuance of the circular in question, changing the procedure to enable the HK region candidates to firstly contest for selection in the local cadre posts and thereafter have an upper hand and seek selection in the non-local cadre posts is not only arbitrary but also opposed to the rule of equality.