CHENNAI: In a reprieve to 410 teachers, whose recruitment to govt service was delayed for more than a decade, Madras high court has directed Tamil Nadu govt to appoint them as secondary grade or graduate assistant as expeditiously as possible.
The first bench of Acting Chief Justice R Mahadevan (since elevated to the Supreme Court) and Justice Mohammad Saffiq passed the order earlier this week while allowing the pleas moved by the 410 teachers.
"It is well-established that selection does not confer any indefeasible right to appointment. However, it is equally trite that in abandoning an ongoing selection without taking it to its logical end, the state cannot act in an unreasonable, arbitrary, whimsical or capricious manner," the bench said.
According to advocate Kavitha Rameshwar counsel for the petitioners, after the implementation of the Right to Education Act in 2010, clearing the Teachers Eligibility Test (TET) was made as eligibility criteria for recruitment to govt service.
In 2011, the state constituted the Teachers Recruitment Board (TRB) through which TET was conducted. The petitioners are the candidates who have cleared the TET between 2013 and 2017. While even after several years the petitioners were not issued appointment orders, in 2018 the state passed a GO introducing competitive exam for teacher appointments in govt schools, the petitioner said.
"The govt had abandoned its own stand and introduced a new method i.e., competitive examination without giving preference to the petitioners, who have already passed such competitive examination. The govt has failed to take note of the fact that those who have already passed the competitive examination, must not be directed to undergo the very same examination again," Kavitha Rameshwar said.
She further contended that the petitioners were made to run from the pillar to post since 2014 endlessly waiting for employment. In this process, some of the petitioners have crossed the requisite age for being appointed as teachers in govt or govt aided schools. While so, if some of the petitioners, who are already aged, are made to take the competitive examination again, it will frustrate them.
Allowing the petitions, the court directed the state to issue appoint orders to all the 410 candidates depending on their respective merit.
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