The Supreme Court on Wednesday dismissed pleas by the Uttar Pradesh Shiksha Mitra Association, which challenged the State government’s order of January 7, 2019 fixing the qualifying marks for the Assistant Teacher Recruitment Examination 2019 at 65 and 60 for the general and reserved categories, respectively.
Giving the go-ahead for recruitment of 69,000 assistant basic teachers in accordance with the results declared in May, a Bench led by Justice U.U. Lalit recorded an assurance by the State government that Shiksha Mitras would be given a last opportunity to attend the next recruitment examination, the modalities of which would be decided by the government.
The court did not intervene against the State’s position that the cut-off percentage was increased by 20% to draw the best candidates.
The court had earlier sought an explanation from the State government for changing the earlier cut-off of 45% for general category and 40% for reserved category.
The Allahabad High Court had upheld the Uttar Pradesh government’s decision to raise the cut-off. Several petitions had been filed against the High Court decision, which paved the way towards the appointment of assistant basic teachers. The High Court had even directed the State government to complete the process within the next three months.
On July 25, 2017, the apex court had asked the State government to cancel the recruitment of 1,37,517 teachers to the post of TET assistant teacher, but give them the benefit of experience in two recruitments.
On January 17, 2018, the government ordered written exams for 69,000 assistant teachers.
