CHENNAI: The Madras High Court quashed an order of the state School Education department for appointing 18 district education officers (DEOs) for failure of adherence to communal reservation rules. Justice RN Manjula also directed the department to draw a fresh selection list by following the reservation, separately for open and teacher category candidates.
The judge recently passed the orders allowing the petitions that alleged the recruitment notification was issued in 2018 for 18 DEO posts, of which 14 are from open category and four from teachers of aided-schools. However, the four teacher candidates were placed in the BC general and BC women category, thereby depriving the chances of the meritorious BC candidates who had secured higher marks, they contended.
“A BC person with highest marks in the category would not have lost his/her chance of appointment by leaving it to the teacher category,” the judge said. At the same time, for a candidate belonging to the teacher category with high marks in any of the communities, his/her opportunity would have been lost if the vacancies were filled by the BC teachers alone. Since the recruitment has been done in a haphazard manner, the selection list is liable to be quashed, the judge noted.
By quashing the department’s order, the judge directed concerned authorities, including TNPSC, to redo the exercise within four weeks.