CUTTACK: The Orissa High Court has directed the state government to appoint 15 teachers as junior teachers in primary and upper primary schools whose names figured in the draft merit list but were later dropped as they had two-year BEd (Special Education) degree instead of the prescribed one year BEd (Special Education) qualification.
According to the case records, applications were invited by the School and Mass Education department for filling up 18,000 posts of junior teachers on September 10, 2023. A notification issued by National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE) on August 23, 2010, with BEd (Special Education) course of one-year duration, was adopted by the department as part of minimum educational qualification.
Initially, the 15 candidates filed separate petitions in the high court when their names which were in the draft merit list did not figure in the final list on August 5, 2024 as they had the two-year degree. But the single judge upheld rejection of their applications.
Subsequently, they filed separate writ appeals seeking the high court’s direction for inclusion in the final merit list. They contended that the SME department had discontinued the one-year course after 2014-15 and introduced the two-year degree course in its place.
Considering their plea, the division bench of Acting Chief Justice Arindam Sinha and Justice MS Sahoo observed that the department while embarking on the recruitment process did not evolve its own policy and relied upon an obsolete notification issued by NCTE.
“There is no rationale as to why persons who had done the course up to year 2014 should be deemed to be better qualified than persons who did the same course later on a longer duration and stand disqualified,” the bench observed.
Accordingly, the division bench reversed the judgement of the single judge and directed for inclusion of the names of the 15 petitioners in the August 5, 2024 final merit list for appointment.