SC Stays Chhattisgarh HC Direction Excluding B.Ed. Candidates from Primary School Teachers Recruitment

The Supreme Court on Tuesday stayed an interim direction by the Chhattisgarh High Court excluding B.Ed. candidates from participating in the ongoing primary school teachers recruitment process in the state.

"Taking into consideration that the recruitment process which was in progress, is now interrupted by the ad-interim order (of the High Court)... at this stage, interrupting the recruitment process would not be justified," a bench of Justices A.S. Boppana and Prashant Kumar Mishra said, while staying the high court's interim order of August 21.

The bench clarified that the recruitment process, which was in progress prior to the high court's interim order, will continue but the appointments made will be subject to the outcome of its final decision.

The apex court said that the Chhattisgarh HC will decide the pending petitions instituted before it and if required, it may allow candidates having B.Ed degrees to be impleaded as parties.

On August 21, the high court put the recruitment process in relation to the B.Ed candidates in abeyance till the next date of hearing i.e. for a period of 4 weeks on a plea filed by a subset of successful candidates holding D.Ed. Degree.

On the subsequent day after the High Court passed the impugned order, counselling between August 23 and August 30 was notified by the School Education Department through an advertisement.

The special leave petition claimed that the high court misinterpreted the recent Supreme Court judgment which had quashed a 2018 notification issued by the National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE) making B.Ed. degree holders eligible for appointment to the post of primary school teachers.

The plea before the Supreme Court, filed through advocate Manoj Gorkela, said that the recent SC judgment will be applied prospectively and cannot be given retrospective application.

It said that advertisement issued on August 22 is illegal and bad in law since the matter is sub-judice and the counselling cannot be initiated without including the successful B.Ed. candidates who have fully participated in the entire selection process.

"Thus with the operation of the Impugned order (of the High Court) in existence... every other meritorious B.Ed. candidates would be put to immense hardships as they have spent their entire academic year in preparation of the examination thereby causing severe damage to their life and livelihood," said the plea.