HYDERABAD: Finding fault with the Telangana government for issuing notification for Teachers’ Recruitment Test (TRT) by taking 31 districts of the state into consideration, a division bench of the Hyderabad High Court on Friday directed the authorities to confine the vacant teacher posts to the erstwhile 10 districts instead of the reorganised 31 districts and asked the Telangana State Public Service Commission (TSPSC) to issue a modified notification for the purpose. Further, the court directed to extend the time till December 15 to receive applications from the candidates who have not applied earlier. The TRT will be held as per schedule i.e. in February 2018.
The bench of Acting Chief Justice Ramesh Ranganathan and Justice G Shyam Prasad was passing these orders in a petition by G Arun Kumar and three others from Adilabad district seeking direction to the authorities concerned to conduct the TRT by taking the erstwhile 10 districts of the state into consideration and implement the local areas rule for the purpose of study, residence and reservation in accordance with the Presidential Order.
They urged the court to suspend the impugned GO 25 issued on October 10, 2017 to recruit 8,792 teacher posts and the notification issued on Oct 21, 2017 by the TSPSC for the posts of Secondary Grade Teachers (SGTs) in the reorganised districts of the state.
On earlier occasion, petitioner’s counsel S Rahul Reddy pointed out that several candidates of the previous 10 districts would become ‘non-locals’ due to establishment of 31 new districts in the state. The previous 10 districts should be taken into consideration till necessary amendments were made to the Presidential Orders. In fact, the impugned notification of SGT posts was issued for all the 31 districts, whereas various notifications issued by other departments in Telangana have confined themselves to only 10 districts, he pointed out.
On the other hand, advocate-general D Prakash Reddy said the government’s intention in issuing the above notification to fill teachers posts for all the 31 districts was to provide employment to all the locals. Issuance of notification by taking the existing 31 districts into consideration should not be the ground for the court to interfere with the recruitment. He made it clear that the state was ready to adjust the said posts among the previous 10 districts if the court wanted the government to take erstwhile 10 districts into consideration for filling the posts.
After hearing both sides and recording the statement of the AG, the bench said it would not be proper for the government to take the new 31 districts into consideration without having amendment to the Presidential Order. At present, the Presidential Orders were made applicable to the erstwhile 10 districts only, it noted.