Allahabad HC Grants Relief To Assistant Teachers Candidates Whose Recruitment Was Cancelled Due To Application Form Discrepancy

The Allahabad High Court on Monday granted relief to certain candidates who participated in the process of recruitment of 69000 Assistant Teachers in Primary Schools but their candidature was canceled by UP Goverment due to discrepancies/errors mentioned in the application form relating to "Shiksha Mitra".

The bench of Justice Om Prakash Shukla observed that in case a candidate furnishes some information in his/her online application form by way of which, he/she put himself in a disadvantaged position, his candidature will not stand cancelled.

In this regard, the court took note of the two Judgments of the Apex Court in the cases of Jyoti Yadav & Anr. V/s The State of UP & Ors. [WP 322 of 2021] and Rahul Kumar vs. State of UP and others [WP 378 of 2021] wherein it was ruled that in case a candidate furnishes some information in his/her online application form which, although not in commensurate to the actual information, but does not put him/her to any advantageous position, such misinformation, in seclusion, may not be treated as a ground for rejecting the candidature.

With this, the Court, while granting relief to over 100 candidates, issued the following orders/direction to the authorties:

(i) The issue relating to Shiksha Mitra be reexamined by the competent authority in the light of the observations made by the Supreme Court in the aforesaid judgments;

(ii) All impugned orders rejecting the candidature of the candidates on account of the error committed by them relating to Shiksha Mitra are set-aside;

(iii) It is made clear that candidates, whose names do not find place in the select list dated 12.5.2020, will not get any benefit with the change of marks as their merit position will not be changed for the reason that in case this is allowed to happen at this stage, it will open the entire selection process which is not the spirit of the order passed by this Court;

(iv) These cases are remitted to the authority of the district concerned for re-examination thereof considering the aforesaid judgment of the Supreme Court and to take a final decision thereon.

(v) The entire process shall be completed by the competent authority within a period of eight weeks from the date of receipt of a copy of this order, considering the respective writ petition as representation of the candidate concerned;

(vi) It is further directed that in case any candidate is found entitled for appointment and is offered appointment on review of his/her case in terms of the aforesaid directions, he/she shall get all the benefits from the date, he/she joins the service.

(vii) Any recovery proceedings, initiated, by the concerned authority shall be kept in abeyance and shall be subject to the decision/outcome of competent authority of the district concerned.

The case in brief

The Court was essentially dealing with a bunch of pleas filed by candidates/petitioners, whose candidature for the post of UP Assistant Teachers in primary school in the year 2019 were either not found proper due to inaccuracy and/or discrepancy between the online application and the actual status of the said candidate.

Though some of these petitioners found their way to the final selection list, however subsequently, the department, finding disparity in the declaration made in the online application and the actual status of the said candidate, cancelled their recruitment and consequent recovery were directed by the respondent.

Essentially, the discrepancies/error mentioned in the application form was related to "Shiksha Mitra", wherein in some petitions, the weightage marks for working as shikha Mitra had not been given appropriately, whereas in some cases the petitioners have been erroneously considered as Shiksha Mitra and were although initially given appointment, however, subsequently their appointment were cancelled and consequential recovery orders were issued against them.

These discrepancies/error crept either due to non-mentioning or clicking the wrong key/code, leading to erroneous weightage given for working as Shiksha Mitra or erroneously opting for BTC through regular channel or BTC through correspondence.

Taking into account the fact that the issue relating to any kind of rectification of error in the application form by any candidate of Assistant Teacher Recruitment Examination, 2019, stood settled by the two judgments of the Apex Court, the Court directed the competent authorities to examine the case of the petitioner in terms of the observations of the Apex Court. 

Therefore, issuing the directions as aforesaid, the Court disposed of the petitions.

Advocates Abhishek Khare, Aahuti Agarwal, Virendra Kumar Dubey, Deepak Singh, P.K. Mishra appeared for the petitioners and Additional Chief Standing Counsel Ran Vijay Singh appeared for the U.P. Basic Education Board.

Case title - Vijay Gupta v. State Of U.P. Thru.Addl.Chief Secy.Basic Education Lko. And ors along with connected matters

Case Citation: 2022 LiveLaw (AB) 520

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