CUTTACK: The Orissa High Court has dismissed on grounds of merit a batch of petitions that had challenged the advertisement of the Directorate of Secondary Education, Odisha issued on December 23 last year for filling up 11,403 vacant posts of teachers in government schools in the State on contractual basis.
The petitioners were applicants and had appeared in the computer-based test. They were unsuccessful in finding a place in the merit list thereafter. They alleged that in all the subjects, the reserved category posts exceeded the ceiling limit of 50 per cent and in some districts, almost twice the number of unreserved category posts if not more.
They also contended that as the petitioners belong to the unreserved category, this improper distribution of posts due to non-compliance with the ceiling limit of 50 per cent resulted in depriving the petitioners from being selected.
On May 19, the HC had issued a stay order. However, on Thursday, the single judge bench of Justice SK Panigrahi in a common judgment said, "The petitioners cannot be granted any relief in these writ petitions and the present writ petitions are liable to be dismissed, being devoid of merit."
He said, "The impugned advertisement is a fresh recruitment drive aimed to fill up vacancies arising in posts in the current year as well as unfilled vacancies carried forward in various social categories from previous years. It is, therefore, observed that the State has not committed any illegality, nor is it in conformity with the statutory provisions, the Constitution and the present position of law."
Justice Panigrahi ruled that there is no breach of the reservation percentage of 50 as prescribed by the Supreme Court except in the case of the SEBC Category which is a legacy issue.