A big decision of the High Court has come in the recruitment case of 69000 teachers. Lucknow Bench of Allahabad High Court has canceled the merit list of teacher recruitment. The government has also been ordered to release the results of 69,000 assistant teacher recruitment examination afresh. This order has not only shocked the UP government, but due to the preparation of the new selection list, thousands of teachers who have been working for the last 4 years are also in a state of confusion. Let us know what this whole controversy is about…
What is the whole matter and where did the controversy start?
When there was Akhilesh government 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, those 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 1 lakh 37 thousand posts. Yogi government said in 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, Yogi government released vacancies for the first 68500 posts in 2018. After this, the second phase of recruitment was 69000 assistant teacher recruitment.
Where did the controversy start?
This recruitment examination for 69 thousand assistant teacher posts was held on 6 January 2019. For this recruitment, the cutoff for unreserved was 67.11 percent and the cutoff for OBC was 66.73 percent. About 68 thousand people got jobs under this recruitment.
But from here the question arose that reservation rules were ignored in 69 thousand recruitments. Basic Education Rules 1981 were not followed properly. 69000 recruitment candidates who took to the streets to protest said that it is clear in the rules that if any OBC category candidate gets more marks than the cutoff of unreserved category, then he will not be considered for OBC quota but for unreserved category. I will get a job. That means he will not be counted within the scope of reservation.
After this, the issue of recruitment of 69 thousand teachers got complicated. The agitating candidates claimed that in the recruitment of 69 thousand teachers, the OBC category got only 3.86% reservation instead of 27%, that is, the OBC category got only 2637 seats out of 18598 seats. Whereas at that time the government said that about 31 thousand people from OBC category were appointed.
On this statement of the government, the candidates, citing Basic Education Rules-1981 and Reservation Rules-1994, 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 quota. The protesting candidates said that we should not include 29 thousand OBC category people in the ambit of reservation.
Similarly, the candidates allege that out of 69 thousand teacher recruitment, SC category also 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. He also went to the High Court regarding this and also complained to the National Backward Commission.
The case was pending in the High Court
The case of reservation irregularities in the recruitment of 69 thousand teachers was pending in the High Court for a long time. There were allegations of irregularities regarding reservation of 19 thousand seats in teacher recruitment. Many people had gone to court alleging discrepancies in this. The High Court has canceled the merit list considering the existing list of 69000 assistant teachers as wrong. The court has ordered the Uttar Pradesh government to prepare a new merit list within 3 months. In this, orders have been given to do it under the rules of reservation and Basic Education Rules.
Has reservation scam really happened?
On the condition of anonymity, a teacher candidate said that now that the government’s statements have come in the High Court and the court’s order to cancel the merit list has come. In such a situation, once again questions are being raised whether there really was no reservation scam in the state. Last year itself, in March 2023, the Lucknow Bench of Allahabad High Court had considered the list of 69000 assistant teacher recruitment wrong and ordered to re-make the list.