Even after a clear time of Jharkhand High Court directives and a clear time to start recruitment of 6,000 upper primary school teachers, Jharkhand Staff Selection Commission (JSSC) has invited only 2,700 candidates for document verification.
This process was to overcome the rapid shortage of teachers across the state, but has triggered the latest conflict.
More than 500 candidates, many of whom claim to meet the eligibility criteria, have been disqualified without clarification. They all belong to the science category, whose documents verification began in the first week of June as per the High Court’s instructions.
One of the affected candidates, Yogendra Vishwakarma of one backward class I community told the Bharatiya Express that he scored 58 percent above 34 percent required for his category, but was still not invited for the document verification.
The same goes for Chandan Kumar, who achieved 57 percent against the 40 percent required for the general category. Meanwhile, Yamuna Kumar Das of a Scheduled Caste community said that he received 58.4 percent compared to 32 percent cutoff for SCS and STS candidates.
“We were waiting for this recruitment for years. Now, despite the qualifying, we are being pushed out without any reason. We will fight it legally.”
According to the High Court order, a total of 15,001 upper primary teachers are to be appointed, 5,000 for each science, art and language. The current issue is related to the science category only, where the verification process was initiated earlier.
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On contact, JSSC member Pratap Singh admitted that fewer candidates were invited for verification in the science stream. He said, “The number of qualifying candidates in science was less than the total number of posts available. About 2,700 candidates were called, and the process has been completed for science. However, we are open to review the cases,” he said.
He said that the final merit list would clarify many concerns and if one is actually a truly eligible candidate, they would consider calling them for document verification in the second list.
Singh also clarified that when the Commission is trying to follow the court’s schedule, it can look at the time limit of up to two months due to the scale of the recruitment process and complexity. “Currently, verification for the social science category is going on. Language and art themes will be taken later,” he said.
This development comes after the High Court, in April, JSSC ordered to accelerate the recruitment of 26,000 school teachers, directing the appointment of upper primary teachers by the first week of July and primary teachers by mid -September.
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Earlier, during the April hearing, Chief Justice Ms. Ramchandra Rao warned against the delay, appointed the Attorney General to oversee the process. The court intervention economist and worker Dr. A public interest filed by Jean Draze and co-petitioner Paran Amitawa came after litigation (PLI), who highlighted the enforcement of the old teacher of Jharkhand and the enforcement under the right to the Education Act, 2009.
At that time the court also asked JSSC to submit a compliance report by 30 June.
More than 8,000 schools in Jharkhand continue to be run by the same teacher, despite the RTE mandate that each school should not exceed at least two teachers and one pupil-teacher ratio 30: 1.
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