High court dismisses state plea for early hearing

CHANDIGARH: A Punjab and Haryana high court division bench on Friday dismissed a plea by Haryana government seeking early hearing on petitions involving recruitment of 9,455 junior basic trained (JBT) teachers in Haryana. The matter will now be taken up on April 20, the date fixed by high court on an earlier occasion. Haryana had sought early hearing, arguing that there was shortage of teachers and it wanted to resolve the dispute early so that appointments could be made for the new academic session.

However, high court was unimpressed with the plea and decided to hear the matter on already fixed date.

It was on May 5, 2016, that a high court division bench had stayed the appointments of these teachers, nearly a month after same were cleared by a single-judge bench. On March 31, 2016, the single-judge bench had cleared the appointments dismissing a petition in which it was alleged that there were ‘anomalies’ in awarding two marks to those candidates who had master of arts (MA) degrees. In March, 2016 the high court had got the result record examined from forensic laboratory. After the lab gave a clean chit, the HC single-judge bench had cleared the appointments.

In the appeal against the single judge order, some unsuccessful candidates had alleged that names were ‘illegally and arbitrarily’ recommended for appointments.

The petitioners had sought preparation of a fresh merit list.

The process for recruitment for these posts started in the tenure of former chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda in 2012. The result was declared by the Haryana Staff Selection Commission (HSSC) in September 2014.