HC seeks AAP govt, Chief Secy reply on plea for not recruiting special educators in schools

The Delhi High Court on Wednesday sought response of the AAP government and the chief secretary on a contempt plea alleging failure of authorities to initiate the process of recruitment of special educators for disabled children in government schools here. Justice V K Rao issued notices on the contempt petition which alleged that the authorities intentionally and deliberately did not comply with the high court's July 2 order.

The court listed the matter for further hearing on March 16 next year. A division bench of the high court had on July 2 allowed a man's plea seeking age relaxation in order to qualify for the post of Special Education Teachers (SET) in Delhi government schools.

The court had also directed the government to initiate the process of fresh recruitment to the post of SET. It had directed the government to ensure its directions were complied with within four weeks from July 2.

In the contempt plea, advocate Ashok Agarwal, representing the petitioner Syed Mehedi, submitted that despite the order of the division bench of the high court, the Delhi government has failed to initiate the process of recruitment to fill up over 1000 vacancies of SET in the Directorate of Education (DoE). The contempt plea said though the period of four weeks has expired, the authorities have neither issued appointment letter to the man nor they have initiated any process for fresh recruitment to the post of SET in DoE.

He has also sent a legal notice to the authorities but did not receive any response after which he approached the high court. In its July order, the high court had pulled up the AAP government for "lack of concern and sensitivity" and a "myopic" manner of appointing SET for disabled kids by not granting age relaxation to eligible candidates despite a dearth of such educators.

It had said that since there was a dearth of suitably qualified candidates for SET, "it is qualification and merit which should be given due precedence" and relaxation of age ought to have been granted to all who were otherwise eligible. The bench had expressed displeasure with the Delhi government for not granting the age relaxation to Mehedi as the court had twice sent the matter back to it for considering his request in view of the fact that women were granted a blanket relaxation of 10 years.

Both times, in 2014 and in 2019, the Delhi government issued 'office orders' rejecting Mehedi's request for age relaxation to be considered for appointment as a SET. Quashing both the office orders of September 2014 and February this year by which his request was denied, the court had directed that he be granted age relaxation and be also considered for appointment as a SET based on his merit position in the selection process.

The bench had said that many candidates may not have applied earlier due to being overage and in order to be fair to them, directed the government to undertake a fresh recruitment process to fill up the vacant posts of SET, by incorporating the clause of age relaxation to all those applying for the post.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)