The court ruled that exclusion from the merit list despite higher scores constitutes arbitrariness, necessitating compliance with prior judicial directions for fair counselling.

ORDER :

(Rajesh Shankar, J.) :

The present writ petition has been filed for quashing the order as contained in memo No. 343 dated 19.11.2020 (Annexure-6 to the writ petition) passed by the Director, Directorate of Primary Education, Department of School Education & Literacy, Government of Jharkhand (respondent no. 4) whereby the claim of the petitioner for appointment to the post of Assistant Teacher in Primary School (Class- I to V) in the district of Deoghar under Para Teacher Backward Class Category has been rejected. Further prayer has been made for issuance of direction upon the respondents to appoint the petitioner as Assistant Teacher of Primary School in Deoghar District in Para Teacher Backward Class Category.

2. Learned counsel for the petitioner submits that pursuant to Advertisement No. 04/2015, the petitioner applied for the post of Assistant Teacher in Primary School in the District of Deoghar under Para Teacher Backward Class Category. An overall merit list was prepared for Deoghar district in which the petitioner scored 56.17 marks.

3. It is also submitted that after 9th counselling, further counselling was stopped in view of the time schedule fixed by the Department of School Education & Literacy, Government of Jharkhand for completing the selection process of Assistant Teachers. Aggrieved by the said action as well as raising irregularities and anomalies in the counselling process, W.P.(S) No. 19 of 2016 (Binod Kumar Yadav & others Vs. The State of Jharkhand & others) along with other analogous cases were filed before this Court. The said batch of writ petitions were decided by a co-ordinate Bench of this Court vide order dated 02.02.2017 whereby a direction was issued to re-initiate counselling for all unfilled advertised vacancies in all the districts. The said order was challenged by the State of Jharkhand before learned Division Bench of this court by filing L.P.A No. 168 of 2017 (The State of Jharkhand & Others Vs. Binod Kumar Yadav & others), however the said L.P.A. was also dismissed affirming the order passed in W.P.(S) No. 19 of 2016 and other analogous cases. Pursuant to the orders passed in the aforesaid cases as well as the judicial pronouncements and directions issued in several other cases by different Benches of this Court, the Government of Jharkhand came out with a resolution as contained in memo no. 662 dated 02.05.2019 issued under the signature of the Principal Secretary, Department of School Education and Literacy, Government of Jharkhand, whereby it was decided to re-start the counselling for appointment of Assistant Teachers in primary school. A General Notice was also published by the respondent no. 4 informing the concerned candidates that fresh counselling against unfilled advertised vacancies on schedules dates specified in the said general notice was being started as a last opportunity.

4. It is further submitted that the District Education Establishment Committee of Deoghar District published provisional merit list of Assistant Teachers, however the petitioner’s name was not mentioned in the said merit list though the persons who scored lesser marks than the petitioner namely Vijay Mahto (50.69 marks) and Surendra Prasad (54.95 marks) were placed in the merit list. Thereafter, the petitioner preferred representation dated 22.05.2019 before District Superintendent of Education, Deoghar (the respondent no. 2) on the aforesaid issue, however nothing was done in that regard. In the meantime, last counselling was held on 03.06.2019. The petitioner filed a writ petition being W.P.(S) No. 4084 of 2019 for issuance of direction upon the concerned respondents to consider his case for counselling with respect to the appointment of Assistant Teacher in Primary School, which was disposed of vide order dated 10.06.2020 directing him to file a fresh representation before respondent no. 4 who had to examine the matter. Pursuant to the said order, the petitioner represented the respondent no. 4, ho