The regulatory authority for Special Education Teachers is the Rehabilitation Council of India (RCI), not the National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE). Applying regular teacher standards to special educators is arbitrary and violates Article 14 of the Constitution of India.

ORDER

1. The present writ petition under Article 226 of the Constitution of India has been filed by the petitioner challenging the inaction and arbitrary decision of the respondents, whereby the petitioner has been denied appointment to the post of Special Education Teacher in Samvida Shala Shikshak Grade-III. The petitioner seeks a writ of mandamus directing the respondents to consider his case and grant him appointment along with all consequential benefits and seniority, alleging that the denial is highly discriminatory and violative of Articles 14, 15, and 16 of the Constitution of India.

2. The factual matrix, as delineated in the petition, is that the petitioner completed his Diploma in Education (D.Ed.) in Mental Retardation in the year 2011 from “Digdarshika Institute of Rehabilitation & Research, Bhopal”. The said institute is affiliated with and approved by the Rehabilitation Council of India (RCI) for training Special Education Teachers, its name finding place at Serial No.263 in the list of approved institutes by the RCI. Upon completion of the said course, the petitioner also received a certificate from the RCI.

3. Subsequently, the petitioner appeared in the Samvida Shala Shikshak (Grade-III) Eligibility Test, 2011, and secured 83.72 marks out of 150, being declared qualified. Following online document verification and choice filling, the petitioner was allotted Janpad Panchayat, Kukshi, District - Dhar for appointment.

4. The grievance of the petitioner arose when he appeared before Janpad Panchayat, Kukshi for joining. It is stated that respondent No. 4, without applying his mind, wrote to the higher officials that the name of the petitioner’s institute was not present in the list of National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE) approved institutions. Consequently, the petitioner was denied the appointment letter, despite having successfully cleared the entire recruitment process.

5. Learned counsel for the petitioner submits that the impugned action suffers from a complete non-application of mind and amounts to a mechanical exercise of power. It is contended that for the appointment of a Special Education Teacher, the relevant regulatory and affiliating authority is the RCI, not the NCTE. To substantiate this, the petitioner relies on a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed between the NCTE and the RCI. The preamble of the said MoU reads exactly as under:

“India has already launched a sarva shiksha abhiyan aimed at bringing all children to school and enabling them to complete elementary education by 2010. The objective is to ensure that every child of the country has had elementary education by 2010. WHO and the United Nations General Assembly estimated that 10% of the children population has some physical, sensory or cognitive impairment which may interfere with the process of receiving education unless support services are provided. For the last many centuries or so this country has segregated these children in Special schools which have been able to reach very small percentage of children with special needs. In the last 10 years or so it has been realized that inclusive education is feasible and profitable. By including children with special needs in regular schools, both children with special needs and regular children will benefit. The RCI has bee