Eligibility for recruitment under the RTE Act requires candidates to meet qualifications and cut-off dates, prohibiting post-deadline edits to self-certification.

JUDGMENT :

MANGESH S. PATIL, J.

1. Heard. Rule in all these petitions. It is made returnable forthwith.

2. The learned AGPs and the learned advocate Mr. Nikam for respondent-Maharashtra State Council of Examinations (Examination Council) waive service. At the joint request of the parties, all these matters are heard together and are being disposed of by this common judgment to avoid rigmarole, since, with little variations of facts, all these petitions raise a common grievance.

3. We have also heard learned advocate, Mr. Dhakne, for intervenor in Writ Petition No. 10821 of 2024.

4. All these petitioners, having participated at Teachers Aptitude and Intelligence Test – 2022 (TAIT-2022) conducted by the Examination Council under the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009 (RTE Act), and had registered themselves on the portal provided therefor, namely ‘Pavitra Portal’ by uploading their self-certification in the first round, are seeking writ of mandamus directing the Council to allow them to participate in the second round of the ensuing recruitment process of teachers in the State of Maharashtra and to permit them to edit their self-certification. This is the common thread across all these petitions, with individual variations on facts.

5. Though the date is already over, even before we heard these matters and reserved those for passing orders, in our considered view, it would be a matter of right in the petitioners which should be the determinative factor. This being not a cut off date for holding some examination and the local bodies and the private managements would be periodically uploading their need to undertake recruitment process, we thought it fit to decide these matters on their own merits, rather than disposing them of having become infructuous.

6. The learned advocates for all these petitioners would take us through the papers to demonstrate that having been qualified and became eligible by completing either the TET, C-TET or being graduate with the B.Ed. Degree, which are the three eligibility criteria as provided under sub-section 2 of Section 23 of the RTE Act, 2009 and as laid down in the matter of Dheerajkumar Vilas Lomate Vs. The State of Maharashtra and Others, Writ Petition No. 12971 of 2024, by a division bench of this Court, had appeared at TAIT-2022, as per the regulations, pursuant to the advertisement published by the Examination Council on 31.01.2023. During the first round of the recruitment process, in spite of registration by way of self-certification, the petitioners were unable to secure employment.

7. The learned advocates would submit that the respondents are seeking to undertake a second round of the recruitment process through TAIT-2022. They have issued advertisements/notifications on 20.01.2025 and have notified the local bodies and the private managements running the schools to participate, and have released a press note on 06.02.2025, and again on 10.03.2025 expecting the exercise of self-certification to be completed by 20.03.2025.

8. The learned advocates for the petitioners would broadly base their submissions on the ground that the Examination Council allowed not only fresh registration of the candidates for the second round, even when they had not registered during the first round but even has permitted in some cases to edit their self-certification. It is demonstrative of the fact that there is no complete bar for the candidates who have participated in the first round, like the petitioners, to edit their self-certification while participating in the second round. They would submit that no sanctity is attached to self-certification made in the first round. The petitioners, under the peculiar circumstances, obtaining in their individual cases, have intended to edit their self certification and should be allowed to do so.

9. The learned AGPs, by referring to the affidavits-in- reply filed in some of these writ petitions, and Mr. Nikam for the Examination Council, would stron