CUTTACK: The Orissa High Court has dismissed a writ petition filed in 2017 challenging a state government notification revising the upper age limit eligibility criteria for engagement of Sikshya Sahayaks.
The School and Mass Education department had issued the notification on December 26, 2016, reducing the upper age limit for the post from 42 years to 32 years and introduced a requirement of minimum 50 per cent marks at the graduation level. The petitioner, a BEd-qualified candidate who had cleared the Odisha Teachers Eligibility Test (OTET), argued that the revised criteria rendered them ineligible despite being qualified under earlier guidelines.
According to the case record, the upper age limit had remained 42 years from the scheme’s inception in 2000 until August 2013. Advocates Sankar Prasad Pani and Ashutosh Padhy, representing the petitioner, contended that applying the revised criteria to vacancies from prior years was arbitrary and violated Articles 14 and 16 of the Constitution. It was further argued that the petitioner had a “legitimate expectation” of being considered under the earlier norms.
However, opposing the plea, the state government maintained that the notification was lawful and issued within the authority’s competence. In the judgement delivered on March 20, the single judge bench of Justice Chittaranjan Dash held that the revised upper age limit of 32 years was consistent with the Orissa Civil Service (Fixation of Upper Age Limit) Rules, 1989.
Addressing the argument of legitimate expectation, Justice Dash remarked, “A mere expectation on the part of a candidate, even if founded upon the pattern of earlier notifications or past practice, does not confer any enforceable right so as to challenge a subsequent notification issued by the competent authority.”
Justice Dash further noted that the recruitment process pertained to 2016-2017 and that considerable time had elapsed, rendering the relief sought “academic in nature and incapable of practical enforcement.”