Teachers are closely engaged in preparing students for examinations, taking examinations and checking answer sheets of their students – all of these come under purview of their normal duties. Even as examinations are an integral part of a teacher’s life, a section of the terminated 10323 teachers in Tripura are stubbornly opposing to appear for a selection test to save their jobs. They are doing everything else including organizing mass protest, Dharna and filing petitions in Courts, instead of preparing for selection tests for themselves.
Even as all legal options for the 10323 axed teachers seem to be exhausted, some members of the terminated teachers moved High Court of Tripura with a petition urging to get a job without appearing in a selection test.
However, the High Court of Tripura has recently quashed a writ petition filed on behalf of the 10,323 terminated teachers seeking employment without any selection process.
The Single Bench of Justice Arindam Lodh referred to the Supreme Court’s order made earlier based on the state government’s petition to accommodate the 10,323 discharged teachers in various vacant posts without any open advertisements while passing the judgment.
The High Court in its order said, “….this Court cannot reinterpret or re-read the orders otherwise. It has become crystal clear, that the Supreme Court did not accede to the request of the State-Government to permit them to appoint the terminated teachers directly without following the Recruitment Rules or following the established employment norms.”
The High Court also observed that the averments made in the affidavit filed by the State-Government before the Supreme Court and the prayers made seeking permission to appoint the terminated teachers without following normal Recruitment Rules is ‘contrary to the established legal principle of employment’.
As per the order, no Government can plead or take any decision which is not in conformity to the doctrine of established norms of public employment as enshrined in Article-14 & 16 of the Constitution of India. Any such decision being contrary to Constitutional scheme would be declared as null and void, observed Justice Lodh.
On the present Writ Petition filed by Bijoy Krishna Saha, Rajib Das and Arun Bhaumik, Justice Lodh held that their prayers to direct the state government to provide them the employment in the vacant Group C and D posts without adhering to the Selection Process is itself illegal and that no court can give such directions compelling any state government or any authority to make any such employment in any public post so as to accommodate the Writ Petitioners without any selection process.
Justice Lodh then directed the state government and its recruiting agencies as well as the terminated teachers including the petitioners to respect the observations and directions made by the Supreme Court in its true sense and spirit.
The High Court observed that earlier “the Supreme Court clarified that the State government is obliged to conduct selection process in which the concerned candidates i.e. the petitioners and other similarly situated terminated teachers shall be entitled to participate with age relaxation and no relaxation has been given to other eligibility criteria mentioned in the respective Recruitment Rules applicable for the posts to be advertised by different State Government departments.”