In a major setback to the State Government, the Jharkhand High Court on Thursday quashed the advertisement published for the appointment of over 17,000 high school teachers in Jharkhand.
While hearing a writ petition filed by Harish Sharma and others demanding quashing of the advertisement claiming it to be in contrary to the appointment rules, a bench of Justice S Chandrasekhar directed the State Government to publish a fresh advertisement in accordance with the appointment rules and observation of the court.
The advertisement for the appointment of 17,972 candidates in various subjects had been published by the State Government on February 4, 2017.
"The court observed that the combination of subjects for the appointment of Graduate Trainee Teachers for subjects History/Civics in the present case is arbitrary and on account of serious inconsistency and mistake, advertisement number 21/2016 hereby is quashed," said petitioner's advocate Sameer Saurabh.
The court, however, said that the combination of subjects for Maths/Physics and Biology/Chemistry were not arbitrary and in accordance to the appointment rules and needed no interference, he added.
Saurabh also added that the court giving protection to the candidates also directed that candidates who have already applied for the appointment and those who could not apply on account of the qualification prescribed under the advertisement shall also be eligible for making applications, irrespective of their age, in this regard.
Incidentally, two separate posts of teachers have been sanctioned for History and Civics in the State-run schools before 2008, while in all 800 schools set up under different plan heads after that, only one post was sanctioned for the two subjects.
"We pleaded that a uniform rule could not be allowed for the two different schools and hence the advertisement should be quashed, which was allowed by the court today," said another advocate from petitioner's side Sunil Mahto.
Earlier the court, on March 27, had clamped a stay on the recruitment process giving a liberty to the appointing agency - Staff Selection Commission, to accept applications in this regard. The petitioners moved to the High Court after many application forms were rejected by the commission over 'inappropriate' choice of subjects.