The Supreme Court has intervened in the 69000 teacher recruitment dispute that has been going on in the courts for the last four years in Uttar Pradesh and has put a stay on the decision of the Allahabad High Court. The Supreme Court said that the decision of the High Court will not be implemented for the time being, in which the Lucknow bench of the High Court had ordered to cancel the merit list prepared in the 69000 teacher recruitment and prepare a new merit list within 3 months.
The Supreme Court has also issued notice to the Uttar Pradesh government and the parties in the High Court and sought their response. The court has asked the parties to submit a compilation of written arguments in a maximum of seven pages. The bench fixed the next hearing on September 23. The Supreme Court said that it also needs time to study the decision of the single judge bench and division bench of the High Court. In its decision, the Allahabad HC had canceled the selection lists of June 2020 and January 2022 and ordered the UP government to release a new selection list for 69 thousand teachers in three months on the basis of the (ATRE) assistant teacher recruitment examination held in 2019.
The High Court had also said that if a reserved category candidate achieves merit equal to that of the general category, then his selection should be considered in the general category only. Due to this order of the HC, a large number of teachers working in UP were in danger of losing their jobs.
What is the whole matter and where did the dispute start
When Akhilesh government was in power in Uttar Pradesh, 1 lakh 37 thousand Shikshamitras were adjusted as assistant teachers. After this, the matter reached the Supreme Court and the adjustment was cancelled. That is, the Shikshamitras who were made assistant teachers by the Akhilesh government became Shikshamitras again. Now after this, the Supreme Court ordered the Yogi government to recruit for 1 lakh 37 thousand posts. The Yogi government told the Supreme Court that we cannot fill so many posts at once. Then the Supreme Court ordered to fill all the posts in two phases. After this order, the Yogi government first issued vacancies for 68500 posts in 2018. After this, the second phase of recruitment was 69000 assistant teacher recruitment.
Where did the controversy start?
The exam for this recruitment for 69 thousand assistant teacher posts was held on 6 January 2019. The cutoff for unreserved category was 67.11 percent and the cutoff for OBC was 66.73 percent. Under this recruitment, about 68 thousand people got jobs.
But this is where the question arose that reservation rules were ignored in the 69000 recruitment. Basic Education Rules 1981 were not followed properly. The candidates of 69000 recruitment who came out on the streets to protest against this said that it is clear in this rule that if an OBC candidate scores more marks than the cutoff of the unreserved category, then he will get a job in the unreserved category and not from the OBC quota. That is, he will not be counted in the scope of reservation.
After this, the matter of 69 thousand teacher recruitment got complicated. The protesting candidates claimed that in the 69 thousand teacher recruitment, OBC category got only 3.86% reservation instead of 27%, that is, OBC category got only 2637 seats out of 18598 seats. Whereas at that time the government said that about 31 thousand people of OBC category were appointed. On this statement of the government, the candidates cited Basic Education Rules-1981 and Reservation Rules 1994 and said that out of the 31 thousand people of OBC category who have been appointed, about 29 thousand were entitled to get seats from the unreserved category. The protesting candidates said that we should not include 29 thousand people of OBC category in the scope of reservation.
Similarly, the candidates also alleged that out of the 69 thousand teacher recruitment, SC category got only 16.6% reservation instead of 21%. The candidates claimed that there was a scam of about 19 thousand seats in the recruitment of 69 thousand teachers. They also went to the High Court regarding this and also complained to the National Backward Commission.
Source (PTI) (NDTV) (HINDUSTANTIMES)