Point of Law : Director of Secondary Education, Assam may go ahead with the process of verification. However, no final appointment would be made without undertaking the exercise as indicated in the reliefs as granted in this writ petition so as to prevent any uncertainty to prevail while carrying out such exercise.

JUDGMENT :

Heard the learned senior counsel and the learned counsel for the petitioners. Also heard Mr. D. Saikia, learned Advocate General, assisted by Mr. R. Mazumdar, learned standing counsel for the Secondary Education Department and Mr. K.N. Choudhury, learned senior counsel assisted by Mr. D.J. Das, learned counsel for the private respondent nos. 5 to 717 in W.P.(C) 3739/2020.

2. Based upon common facts, similar issues arise for determination in these series of writ petitions filed under Article 226 of the Constitution of India. At the instance of the learned senior counsel and counsel appearing for all the parties, these matters were heard in the admission stage. These writ petitions have broadly been segregated under four following categories, viz.,

i. One set of writ petitions would consist of W.P.(C) 4455/2020, where, amongst others, prayer is that only those who have passed Teacher Eligibility Test (TET for short) in the examination held on 19.01.2020 without grace marks should be allowed to participate in recruitment process to the post of teacher. In this category W.P.(C) nos. 3739/2020, 3881/2020, 4038/2020, 4065/2020, 4109/2020, 4189/2020, 4192/2020, 4198/2020, 4303/2020, 4361/2020, 4377/2020 and 978/2021 have been included because in all these cases the award of grace marks has been challenged with prayer for giving the petitioners preference over all those who were awarded grace marks. In some of these writ petitions, reference has been made to the relevant clause in the educational advertisement for holding Teachers Eligibility Test (TET) wherein it was provided that candidates would have to get the qualifying marks in both papers and that maximum twice the number of vacancies can be declared to be qualified;

ii. The second set of writ petition would include W.P.(C) 3882/2020, where prayer is to award grace marks as the petitioners have got the aggregate qualifying marks in both papers, but have not got qualifying marks in one paper;

iii. The third set of writ petition would include W.P.(C) 3435/2020, where the candidates would not qualify despite award of 5 grace marks and therefore, prayer is to the effect that they be given further grace marks and declared to be qualified. However, the case of the petitioners is that they had secured 60% in the aggregate, yet as they had not secured 60% in one part out of two parts, the petitioners were declared unsuccessful in the TET exams.

iv. The fourth set of writ petitions would include W.P.(C) 3633/2020, where the petitioner is also seeking award of grace marks and W.P.(C) 3703/2020 is also included herein, as it has been alleged that they were wrongly denied marks for correct answers given and therefore, prayers have been made for re-evaluation.

Case of the petitioners:

3. Shorn of unnecessary details, the case of the petitioners is that they are all graduates in different stream and that except for having TET qualification then, they otherwise have all the requisite qualification for being selected and appointed as teacher in the High Schools and Higher Secondary Schools in the State. On 13.11.2019, the Member Secretary, TET Empowered Committee had issued an advertisement bearing no. RMSA/Special TET/ 842/2017/172 in online portal inviting applications for medium wise (Assamese, Bengali, Bodo, Manipuri and Hindi medium) TET for Secondary level to be conducted by the Government of Assam. The pre-requisite for being eligible for appearing in TET was that the intending candidate must have Graduate/ Post Graduate Degree from a recognized University with 50% marks and a Degree of B.Ed. from National Council of Teacher Education (NCTE for short). It was specifically mentioned therein that the candidates would have to qualify in both the parts separately to qualify in the examination. Moreover, for general category candidates, 60% marks was required to be obtained in each part, i.e. Part-I and Part-II of the question booklet and in case of candidates belonging to SC/ST/OBC/MOBC/