New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Tuesday stayed an interim direction by the Chhattisgarh High Court that barred BEd candidates from participating in the ongoing primary school teachers recruitment process in the state.
A division bench of justices AS Bopanna and Prashant Kumar Mishra observed: “Taking into consideration that the recruitment process which was in progress, is now interrupted by the ad-interim order (of the High Court)… at this stage, interrupting the recruitment process would not be justified.” The Supreme Court also stayed the high court’s interim order of August 21, which restrained the B Ed candidates from appearing in the primary teachers’ examination.
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The bench clarified that the recruitment process, which was in progress prior to the high court’s interim order, will continue but the appointments made will be subject to the outcome of its final decision. The apex court said that the Chhattisgarh HC will decide the pending petitions instituted before it and if required, may allow candidates having B.Ed degrees to be impleaded as parties.
On August 21, the high court put the recruitment process in relation to the B.Ed candidates in abeyance till the next date of hearing i.e. for a period of 4 weeks on a plea filed by a subset of successful candidates holding D.El.Ed. degree.
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On the subsequent day after the High Court passed the impugned order, counselling between August 23 and August 30 was notified by the Chattisgarh’s School Education Department through an advertisement.
The special leave petition claimed that the high court misinterpreted the recent Supreme Court judgment which had quashed a 2018 notification issued by the National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE) making BEd degree holders eligible for appointment to the post of primary school teachers. In the plea filed in the Supreme Court filed by advocate Manoj Gorkela, said that the recent SC judgment will be applied prospectively and cannot be given retrospective application.
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It said that advertisement issued on August 22 is illegal and bad in law since the matter is sub-judice and the counselling cannot be initiated without including the successful B.Ed. candidates who have fully participated in the entire selection process.
“Thus with the operation of the Impugned order (of the High Court) in existence… every other meritorious B.Ed. candidates would be put to immense hardships as they have spent their entire academic year in preparation of the examination thereby causing severe damage to their life and livelihood,” said the plea.
BEd qualified students in Bihar in dilemma, as govt is yet to take stand
The BEd qualified students, who participated in the written examination conducted by the Bihar Public Service Commission (BPSC) for appointment of primary teachers are in the state of dilemma over the fate of the ongoing recruitment drive owing the Supreme Court judgement, which declared only DElED qualified students fit for the recruitment in primary sections. The BPSC did not restrained the BEd students from partaking the examination on the plea that their was no direction on it from the state education department. “We will continue with the process as decided earlier. There will not be any implication of the SC order on the teachers’ recruitment process, which was announced before the judgement,” said a senior officer of the BPSC.
However, the teachers’ post aspirants said that the SC’s observation in the Chattisgarh teachers’ recruitment process too was not clear, as it said that the publication of final result will have its bearing of the final judgement on this case.
The BPSC has recently conducted recruitment examination to prepare the merit list for appointment of around 1.70 lakh teachers in both primary and secondary sections.
