TET gets HC green light

The Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court on Monday vacated an interim stay ordered by a single judge at the vacation court, which initially stalled the recruitment of 7,903 secondary grade teachers.

On May 30, Justice G M Akbar Ali ordered the interim stay after two persons, who registered with the employment exchange seeking secondary grade teacher posts, moved the court stating that the condition laid down by the Tamil Nadu Teachers Recruitment Board that applicants for the post of secondary grade teachers would have to clear the Teachers Eligibility Test (TET), was in violation of a government notification.

The government notification stated that secondary grade teachers would be recruited based on district seniority, until a special leave petition in the Supreme Court was cleared. 

The SC also directed the State to recruit secondary grade teachers based on seniority until it disposed the State’s appeal against the High Court order (which again directed secondary grade teacher’s recruitment based on seniority), the petitioners pointed out. Meanwhile, the government advocates clarified that the TET was only optional for secondary grade teachers. It was a must for graduate assistants, they added.

Vacating the interim stay, Justice K Venkataraman said,

“I am of the considered view that even assuming that the cases of the petitioners, who are two in number, have to be considered favourably and even assuming that the writ petitions have to allowed in their favour, there cannot be any stay of the operation of the impugned notification, which will stall the entire selection process for secondary grade teachers.”

“However, I make it very clear that the respondents ( School Education Department and Tamil Nadu Teachers Recruitment Board) shall not fill up two posts of secondary grade teachers until further orders from this court and the two posts shall be kept vacant until further orders,” he added.

The Advocate General also said that the recruitment process would commence with regard to other secondary grade teachers except the two petitioners. The two petitions have been posted for further hearing on July 6, 2012.

Related Stories

No stories found.
The New Indian Express
www.newindianexpress.com