The requirement for in-service teachers to pass the Teacher Eligibility Test (TET) under the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009, is a mandatory constitutional and statutory obligation, not a retrospective imposition on service conditions, intended to ensure quality in elementary education.

J U D G M E N T

DIPANKAR DATTA, J.

PROEM

1. We are tasked to consider and decide a batch of review petitions (initially in excess of 65 and some subsequently), that are presented with a common grievance that the judgment and order¹order under review passed by us in Anjuman Ishaat-e-Taleem Trust v. State of Maharashtra²2025 SCC OnLine SC 1912 erroneously interprets the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009³RTE Act. Premised on the multi-fold grounds urged in the petitions, it is claimed that the order under review has caused immense injustice to the petitioners and, thus, ought to be reviewed upon extending opportunity of hearing in open court proceedings. Vide the order under review, inter alia, in-service teachers imparting lessons to students recruited prior to enactment of the RTE Act, and having more than 5 (five) years to retire on superannuation, were held to be under an obligation to qualify the Teacher Eligibility Test⁴TET within 2 (two) years from 1st September, 2025. In the interest of justice, we directed the review petitions to be placed for open court hearing.

2. Petitioners – various States, teachers’ associations/organisations, individual teachers – are not aggrieved by the entirety of what we held in Anjuman (supra); rather, they are aggrieved by only a part of it which we have noticed in the preceding paragraph.

3. However, for the sake of completeness, we may record that upon threadbare examination of the Constitution, Article 21-A, and the relevant statutory provisions, we held [from paragraph 192 onwards of Anjuman (supra)] that the requirement of qualifying the TET applies equally to in-service teachers as a mandatory eligibility condition for continuation in service and is, a fortiori, mandatory for promotion. Invoking our powers under Article 142 of the Constitution, we granted a period of 2 (two) years to those teachers who had more than 5 (five) years of service remaining to qualify the TET, failing which they would not be entitled to continue in service. We further clarified that, irrespective of the length of service remaining, any teacher aspiring for promotion would necessarily be required to qualify the TET.

4. It is primarily these observations/directions that the petitioners claim to be premised on an incorrect interpretation of the RTE Act and is, thus, erroneous on the face of the record.

5. This Court in Northern India Caterers (India) Ltd. v. State (UT of Delhi)⁵(1980) 2 SCC 167, speaking through the illustrious voice of Hon’ble Krishna Iyer, J., had expressed the limited scope of review as:

“A plea for review, unless the first judicial view is manifestly distorted, is like asking for the moon. A forensic defeat cannot be avenged by an invitation to have a second look, hopeful of discovery of flaws and reversal of result.”

6. Yet again, recently, this Court in Bharti Airtel Ltd. v. A.S. Raghavendra⁶(2024) 6 SCC 418 had the occasion to hold as follows:

16. The gist of the aforestated decisions is that:

16.1. A judgment is open to review inter alia if there is a mistake or an error apparent on the face of the record.

16.2. A judgment pronounced by the court is final, and departure from that principle is justified only when circumstances of a substantial and compelling character make it necessary to do so.

16.3. An error which is not self-evident and has to be detected by a process of reasoning, can hardly be said to be an error apparent on the face of record justifying the court to exercise its power of review.

16.4. In exercise of the jurisdiction und