The government is not obligated to fill all advertised posts, and candidates have no fundamental right to be appointed.

ORDER

V. Ramasubramanian, J.

Aggrieved by the dismissal of a batch of appeals arising out of the dismissal of writ petitions challenging their non-appointment to the post of Assistant Teachers in Secondary and Higher Secondary Schools in the State of West Bengal, the candidates who participated in the selection have come up with these special leave petitions.

2. We have heard the learned counsel for the parties and the learned standing counsel for the respondent-State.

3. The brief facts necessary for the disposal of these special leave petitions are as follows:-

i. By a notification issued in the last week of December 2011, the West Bengal Central School Service Commission notified the initiation of the process of selection for appointment of 6891 Teachers.

ii. Subsequently, by a Notification dated 28.12.2011, the Governor of West Bengal sanctioned 39510 additional posts of teachers, distributed among 20 districts of the State of West Bengal. This sanction was for the purported maintenance of pupil-teacher ratio in Primary Schools and Senior High Schools/Higher Secondary Schools. All these posts were directed to be filled up as per the qualifications and procedure prescribed in the relevant recruitment rules.

iii. Pursuant to the above order, the West Bengal Central School Service Commission issued an advertisement dated 29.12.2011 inviting applications from eligible candidates for participation in what was termed as the 12th Regional Level Selection Test, to be held for preparing a panel of Assistant Teachers in recognized non-Government aided Junior High/High/Higher Secondary Schools.

iv. It appears that some candidates who claimed to have been selected on the basis of the minimum qualification specified in the previous Notification dated 25.08.2010 of National Council for Teachers' Education (NCTE) had approached this Court with a writ petition in WP (C) No.173 of 2010 and it was pending. Therefore, another writ petition was filed by West Bengal Unemployed Trained Teachers Association in WP (C) No.94 of 2012. In the said writ petition, this Court ordered the issue of notice on 2.04.2012 and directed the same to be tagged with WP (C) No.173 of 2010.

v. Fortunately there was no prohibition for the respondents to proceed with the conduct of the test and hence TET and subject test were held on 29.07.2012 and 02.09.2012 respectively. While the results of TET were published on 1.12.2012, the results of the subject test were published on 06.08.2013.

vi. But in the meantime the High Court of Calcutta passed an order on 7.02.2013 in WP No.1019 of 2013, at the behest of candidates who claimed to have been selected with the minimum qualification specified in the notification dated 25.08.2010 of NCTE. The said order was clarified by further order dated 08.04.2013.

vii. However, the combined merit list and final merit list were published on 25.09.2013 and the first phase of counselling began on 1.10.2013.

viii. At that stage, this Court passed an interim order dated 25.02.2014 in a batch of writ petitions, WP (C) No.94 of 2012 and others seeking certain details from the Service Commission and the State. After those details were furnished, this Court disposed of all the writ petitions by an Order dated 04.12.2014 transferring all the writ petitions to the Calcutta High Court with a request to the High Court to decide all the matters expeditiously.

ix. Accordingly the writ petitions were taken up by a learned Judge. By a final order dated 26.08.2020, all the writ petitions were dismissed.

x. Appeals were filed against the order of the learned Single Judge, but those appeals were dismissed by the division bench of the High Court by a final order dated 12.01.2021. Petitions seeking a review of the said order were also dismissed on 19.03.2021 and hence the candidates are before us in these special leave petitions.

4. Admittedly the original Notification was for recruitment to 6891 posts. By the Notification dated 29.12.2011, 39510 additional posts were sa