The Allahabad High Court had asked the Uttar Pradesh government to re-release a fresh list of 69,000 candidates selected for the post of assistant teacher through the Assistant Teacher Recruitment Examination (ATRE).
The high court had recently set aside the selection lists issued on June 1, 2020 and January 5, 2022 by the UP government. The exams held in 2019 got stuck in controversy over anomalies in reserved seats.
The high court asked the state government to rectify irregularities in applying reservations in appointments.
What were the Complaints?
Some reserved candidates had contended that there were discrepancies in the reservation policy as despite securing more marks than the cut-off for general candidates, they were not allowed to be considered for recruitment under the general posts.
They alleged that reserved seat students were not given their due representation as per the quota policy, and instead more than 50% of the general category candidates were selected.
The Meritorious Reserved Category (MRC) candidates were placed in the reserved category instead of being placed in the general category. This was against Section 3(6) of the Reservation Act, 1994, which provides that reserved category candidates who score equal to general candidates are to be mandatorily selected/appointed on the unreserved vacancies.
According to candidates who challenged the recruitment, candidates from the Other Backward Class (OBC) were given 3.86% reservation against the mandated 27%, while Scheduled Caste candidates were represented in 16.2% of posts instead of 21%.
Several protests were held in Uttar Pradesh since 2020 over the exam process. There was a prolonged protest in Lucknow by OBC and Dalit candidates waiting for their appointments. They alleged that they were being deprived of jobs as part of a scam.
In 2021, Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath met protesting students and directed the Basic Education Department officials to find a “swift and fair” solution.
What Did the Allahabad High Court Do?
Several candidates had filed petitions on the selection lists being published without declaring category-wise details of the marks obtained by candidates.
During the hearing in the high court, the state government filed several affidavits. It later issued a press statement admitting that the Reservation Act, 1994, could not be properly followed in this case. Therefore, it issued a fresh selection list on January 5, 2022, making 6,800 more appointments from amongst the reserved category candidates. However, this decision was stalled by the Allahabad HC.
But in an order passed on March 13, 2023, a single-judge bench of the Allahabad HC set aside the earlier lists of selected candidates. The matter again reached the high court through several petitions on April 17, 2023, challenging the March 13 order.
On August 13, 2024, the Allahabad High Court asked the state government to implement the reservation policy – after preparing the fresh lists of 69,000 candidates – as envisaged under Section 3 (6) of the Uttar Pradesh Public Services (Reservation for Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Other Backward Classes) Act, 1994.
A division bench of Justices Brij Raj Singh and Attau Rahman Masoodi, hearing a bunch of no less than 91 appeal petitions, ruled that if a reserved category candidate acquires marks equivalent to the merit prescribed for the general category, then the MRC candidate shall be migrated to the general category.
What are the Implications of the Ruling?
The court stressed that if any assistant teacher deployed based on earlier lists is affected by this action, they shall be allowed to continue their jobs through the current academic session so that the students may not suffer.
This means that the recruitment process will be done afresh and that the teachers deployed based on earlier orders stand to lose their jobs.
The appeals challenged the order of the single-judge bench, which had in March 2023 ruled that candidates who benefited from reservations in the Teacher Eligibility Test should not be considered under the general category even if they scored marks as per the cut-off for the general category.
What are the Political Implications?
Although the Yogi Adityanath government on the evening of August 18 indicated it would follow the high court’s directions and not challenge them in the Supreme Court, just three weeks earlier, the CM himself had termed the protests by the candidates as a “conspiracy” of the opposition Samajwadi Party.
During a meeting with officials of Basic Education Department, Adityanath said, “The government is of the clear opinion that the benefit of the reservation facility provided by the Constitution should be available to all the candidates of the reserved category and no injustice should be done to any candidate,” as quoted by The Indian Express.
Lok Sabha Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi said on Saturday that the Allahabad HC’s decision was a befitting reply to the “conspiracies of the BJP government which is playing with the reservation system”.
Meanwhile, SP chief Akhilesh Yadav said Deputy CM Keshav Prasad Maurya’s comments were also a part of a “conspiracy” to mislead the candidates through doublespeak by the government. “First, he was himself involved with the government in usurping the rights of reservation and when the youth fought against him and secured justice after a long struggle, he came forward to prove himself as sympathetic,” said Yadav on X on August 18.
OBCs form around 50% of Uttar Pradesh’s population. And it seems that in the recent Lok Sabha elections, many OBC communities shifted their votes to the Opposition INDIA bloc.
What was ATRE?
The Assistant Teachers Recruitment Examination was held on January 5, 2019. Some 4.31 lakh candidates applied for the examination, of which, 4.10 lakh appeared for it. The results were declared on May 12, 2020, where 1.46 lakh candidates had qualified. The cut-off was fixed at 67.11% for unreserved or general category candidates, 66.73% for OBC candidates and 61.01% for SC candidates.
On June 1, 2020, the Secretary of the Basic Education Board, Allahabad, delineated the recruitment process. Two lists of selected candidates — one dated October 11, 2020, for 31,277 candidates and another dated October 30, 2020, for 36,590 candidates — were then issued, totalling 67,867 of the 69,000 posts, as per an Indian Express report.
Around 1,133 posts for ST candidates were shown lying vacant due to non-availability of candidates from the category.