High Court clears way for appointment of 1035 English TGT teachers in Haryana

Saurabh Malik

Chandigarh, May 13

The Punjab and Haryana High Court has cleared the way for carrying out appointment on 1035 posts of TGT English across Haryana. The matter was brought to the High Court’s notice after some candidates stated that ones with Elective English as a subject were eligible and others with English as a compulsory subject were ineligible.

The writ petitions filed after the written examination result were dismissed by a Single Bench in 2016. Acting on an appeal, the Court, vide its order dated October 9, 2020, directed the state not to finalize the selection process till the matter was pending.

But the state withdrew the advertisement in February 2021. Challenging the withdrawal of notice, senior advocate Chetan Mittal with Udit Garg and Shifali Goyal on behalf of certain candidates contended that the advertisement’s withdrawal in 2021 by the state was totally illegal, when the matter was pending.

As the appeal came up for resumed hearing, the Division Bench of Justice Gurmeet Singh Sandhawalia and Justice Vikas Suri upheld the Single Bench decision. The court held: “Merely on account of pending litigation, the state cannot wriggle out of the invitation given to the candidates once it is at an advanced stage. The action as such on account of the fact that litigation had ensued and which was not even decided as such but defended by the state before the Single Judge cannot be a ground for withdrawal of the advertisement.”

The Bench directed the state to complete the recruitment process initiated vide advertisement dated July 23, 2015, and fill up the vacancies duly advertised. “The Single Judge’s order does not suffer from any infirmity and deserves to be upheld…. On November 3, 2021, this Court had noticed that a fresh advertisement was issued in spite of the fact that there was an order of status quo passed earlier. Resultantly, it was directed that the selection process shall not continue in pursuance of the fresh advertisement. The said order is accordingly confirmed and the State is directed to complete the recruitment process firstly of the advertisement dated July 23, 2015, and fill up the vacancies which have been duly advertised…,” the Bench concluded.