HIGH COURT TO HARYANA: OFFER APPOINTMENTS TO 35 IN WAITING LIST FOR A DECADE

CHANDIGARH: Ten years after teachers’ posts were advertised, the Punjab and Haryana high court has directed the Haryana government to offer appointments to 35 odd applicants.

These persons pursuant to an advertisement in 2012 were recommended for the posts of social studies masters and were in the waiting. However, the Haryana government instead of offering them appointments in place of non-joiners, kept on dillydallying and refused to give them appointments.

In 2015, they approached the HC and a single judge bench ruled in their favour in 2017 against which the government filed an appeal. It is this case now the HC has disposed of asking the state government to give them appointments with notional benefits. The court said the reasons which have now been given by the state do not seem to be germane to the controversy. “The reasoning is for the mere purpose that the state government had to get over its lack of inaction and deny appointments to the candidates who were higher in the wait list,” the bench said. The court was referring to the stand taken by the state in 2014 that since one year validity period of their eligibility has expired, they can’t be given the appointments. In 2015, the government had taken another stand that appointments can’t be made as it has surplus manpower in schools. It is apparent that the stand that the posts had become surplus, was taken in 2015, whereas the right of the petitioners had crystallised in November 2012, when appointments were offered to main list candidates, it said.