Supreme Court Stays Allahabad HC Direction To UP Govt To Prepare Fresh List Of Candidates To Fill 69K Assistant Teachers Vacancies

The Supreme Court today (September 9) stayed the order of the Allahabad High Court directing the redrawing of recruitment list of candidates to fill up 69,000 vacancies to the post of Assistant Teacher in Uttar Pradesh. 

The bench of CJI DY Chandrachud comprising Justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra while issuing notice in the matter, directed a stay on the decision of the Allahabad High Court 

"Fresh steps for redrawing the lists in pursuance of the Impugned directions of the division bench shall be held in abeyance," the Court ordered.

The question posed before the bench was - "When a person who enters in a reservation category, could s/he migrate to general category subsequently?" 

The Impugned High Court order quashed the earlier merit lists issued by the State Government on 01.06.2020 and 05.01.2022 and directed the preparation of fresh merit lists. The Court held that reservation under Section 3(6) of the Uttar Pradesh Public Services (Reservation for Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Other Backward Classes) Act, 1994 (Act of 1994) in the selection of Assistant Teachers in the State shall be applicable at the stage of preparation of merit list after including the result of the Assistant Teachers Recruitment Examination (ATRE) along with other qualification. It was held that any reserved category candidate who secures merit equivalent to that of a general category candidate shall be placed in the general category as per Section 3(6) of the 1994 Act.

 Section 3(6) provides that if any reserved category candidate under the Section gets selected based on merits in an open competition with the general candidates, he/she shall not be adjusted against the vacancies for the reserved category candidates.

Today, the bench was explained that for the selection process , there was an 'Assistant Teachers Recruitment Examination (ATRE)' in which the cut off for the general category was kept at 65 marks while the reserved category was 60 marks. Once a candidate from the schedule caste qualifies, he ends up being in both the general and reserved list. By the notification dated January 1, 2019, any person for the reserved category scoring 65 marks and above was only considered under general category, while any other reserved candidate scoring less than 65 marks was kept under the reserved category only. 

The controversy that subsequently arose was whether this ATRE is only a qualifying examination or part of selection process. It was contended that if its only a qualifying exam, then reservation cannot be decided on the basis of a qualifying exam.

The Court asked the counsels appearing for the parties to submit their brief notes on the arguments to the two nodal counsels appointed by it, the state of UP represented by Additional Solicitor General Aishwarya Bhati was also allowed to file its brief submissions independently. 

Developments That Lead Upto The Present Impugned Order 

Acting under the U.P. Basic Education Act, of 1972, the State Government framed Service Rules 1981 for the selection and recruitment of Assistant Teachers in the primary schools run by the State. Rule 8 of the said Rules prescribed qualifications for appointment of the Assistant Teachers. Rule 9 provided for reservation and Rule 14 provided for procedure of appointment on the post of Assistant Teacher.

Thereafter, the U.P. Public Services (Reservation for Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Other Backward Classes) Act, 1994 was enacted to provide equal opportunity to reserved category candidates seeking appointment to posts of Assistant Teachers. Subsequently, a government order dated 25.03.1994 was issued which allowed migration of Meritorious Reserved Candidates even if the benefit of relaxation has been taken by the reserved category candidates.

In 2011, the State Government amended the Service Rules 1981 to include the Teachers Eligibility Test (TET) as the minimum qualification for Assistant Teachers, to improve the standard of basic education Teachers.

The amendment was upheld by the Supreme Court with certain “beneficial directions” for the Shiksha Mitra. Subsequently, Rule 8(1)(ii)(a) of the Service Rules, 1981 was further amended to include passing the Assistant Teachers Recruitment Examination as a mandatory qualification for appointment as Assistant Teacher. Rule 14 and its Appendix were amended to take 60% of the ATRE marks as weightage.

After the notification for the first ATR Examination, the same was removed as a minimum qualification but was added as a step in the selection process under Rule 14. Subsequently, while deciding to fill up 69,000 vacancies with ATRE, the State Government did not mention any compartmentalization of candidates for or implementing vertical reservation. However, vide an advertisement it was stated that the minimum qualifying marks for the unreserved category was 65% and for the reserved category was 60%.

It was stated that this was for classification and not reservation. It was also clarified that passing ATRE was only an eligibility criterion and did not accrue any right to appointment. Another amendment was carried out in 2019 by which a pre-qualification for appearing in the ATRE was added retrospectively from 28.06.2018, which was the date of the notification.

Upon challenge to the notification, a division bench of the Allahabad High Court held that ATRE  was only for qualifying and not part of recruitment process to ascertain reservations and selections. 

Meanwhile, ATRE was conducted where 1,46,060 were found eligible. 2 select lists were published, however, allegedly, reserved candidates were not given due representation as per their quota selecting more than 50% general category candidates. Accordingly, the Meritorious Reserved Candidates were placed in a reserved category instead of a general category and did not get reservations as per Section 3 of the 1994 Act.

Feeling aggrieved, certain reserved category candidates approached the High Court. In a press note, the State Government admitted that the 1994 was not implemented properly and a fresh list was issued granting 6800 more appointments to the reserved category candidates.

The Single Judge, in writ jurisdiction, held that candidates could not migrate from one category to another based on their merits. It was held that the marks obtained by the reserved category candidates in ATRE-2019 were only for the implementation of the Reservation Act, 2014 and even additional qualifications cannot allow migration from the reserved category to the unreserved category.

Observations Of The Division Bench Of High Court 

The bench of Justices Attau Rahman Masoodi and  Brij Raj Singh held that the Circular dated 07.01.2019 by which the minimum cut-off was fixed is not a concession under Section 8 of the 1994 Act. It was held that once the reserved category candidate who had secured higher marks or was at par with the general category candidate had migrated from the reserved category to the general category based on ATRE marks, he could not be allowed to migrate back to the reserved category after addition of other qualifications for the purposes of seeking reservation. 

The Court held that by virtue of Rule 14 of the Service Rules, 1981, the merit list could only be prepared after considering all aspects of the selection process and therefore, migration could not be done earlier based only on the marks obtained in ATRE.

Once there was no challenge to the examination itself and the circular dated 07.10.2019 setting the cut-off percentage had been upheld by the Supreme Court, the Court observed that it was within the State Government's power to fix the cut-off percentage. It was held that the intention of the State Government regarding migration could not be assumed based on the Circular. 

Accordingly, the Court quashed the earlier merit lists issued by the State Government and directed the preparation of fresh merit lists in accordance with Rule 14 of Service Rules, 1981, reservation policy be adopted as envisaged under Section 3 (6) of Reservation Act, 1994. It was held that any reserved category candidate who secures merit equivalent to that of a general category candidate shall be placed in the general category as per Section 3(6) of the 1994 Act.

Case Details : RAVI KUMAR SAXENA vs. STATE OF U.P. Diary No. - 38554/2024

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