The Orissa High Court has quashed the Hindi teacher recruitment test conducted by Odisha’s Staff Selection Commission on the ground of non-adherence to clauses of the advertised recruitment notification, saying that “how such a grave error could occur at the hands of the Commission
High Court Of Orissa
The Orissa High Court has quashed the Hindi teacher recruitment test conducted by Odisha’s Staff Selection Commission on the ground of non-adherence to clauses of the advertised recruitment notification, saying that “how such a grave error could occur at the hands of the Commission, which plays a pivotal role in the matter of selection & employment to public service”.
Pulling up the Commission that recruits for Group-B and Group-C posts in the Odisha government for not following the prescribed procedure laid out in the Recruitment Notification, the Single Bench of High Court Justice Dixit Krishna Shripad ruled that “the selection process to the 711 posts of Hindi Teachers, as has been done hitherto, is quashed, retaining its stage anterior to Written Main Examination.
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The Commission shall hold the Preliminary Examination in terms of the Recruitment Advertisement, so far as the posts of Hindi Teachers are concerned, within a period of three months.”
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The aspirants for the job appeared for the Written Main Examination held on 15 May. The examination was for 150 marks, of which 20 were earmarked for pedagogy, and multiple-choice answers were in Hindi. Questions 21 to 150 related to the Hindi subject, and multiple answers were provided in Hindi only.
The Recruitment Notification specifically stated that should applications be more than five times the notified vacancies, a preliminary Examination would be conducted to squeeze the zone of consideration. As a matter of policy, a bilingual facility, namely, English (Roman script) & Hindi (Devanagari script), was to be made available to the aspiring candidates.
However, a preliminary examination was neither conducted nor was the bilingual facility provided in violation of the recruitment notification. As a result, the job aspirants were denied the advantage of the English version of the questions. They further grieved that had the zone of consideration been squeezed by eliminating unworthy applicants by holding the Preliminary Examination, they would have stood a better chance of selection to the posts.
The Recruitment Notification held out to the public in general and aspiring candidates in particular that should applicants exceeded five times the notified vacancies, a Preliminary Examination would be conducted to narrow down the zone of consideration. Therefore, dispensing with the sieving exercise was unauthorised and unjustified, to say the least, the reason assigned by the Commission being demonstrably wrong.
The notified vacancies for recruitment in Hindi teacher posts were 711. As against this, there were 4,493 applicants. Even by simple arithmetic, the submission of petitioners’ counsel stands substantiated; apparently, the total number of applicants for the posts in question far exceeds the 1:5 ratio.
Therefore, dispensing with the preliminary examination was incompetent & prejudicial to the candidates, like the petitioners, who were made to compete with all and sundry.
Again, it remains a mystery wrapped in an enigma as to why the English version of the Pedagogy & Evaluation Paper was not furnished, as the order pointed out.
That would not serve the cause of competitive justice and, on the other hand, would frustrate the very purpose of choosing the meritorious candidates from the open market, Justice Shripad stated in the verdict on Wednesday.
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