NAND KISHORE OJHA Vs. ANJANI KUMAR SINGH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) CONTEMPT Petition (C) No. 297 of 2007, filed in S.L.P. (C) No. 22882 of 2004, arose out of an alleged breach of undertaking said to have been given on 18th January, 2006, by the State of Bihar and the order passed on the basis thereof on 23rd January, 2006, by this Court in S.L.P. (C) No. 22882 -22888 of 2004. As we have indicated in our order dated 9th January, 2009, a number of writ petitions had been filed against the State of Bihar, raising issues relating to recruitment of teachers in primary schools. At one stage, it was brought to our notice that on account of changes in the policy, trained teachers who were in place at the time when the undertakings were given, could not be accommodated. Accordingly, we had passed orders directing that the trained teachers who at one time were less than the number of vacant posts, should be given appointment in the vacancies that were available. Subsequently, however, there was some discrepancy as to the number of vacancies available as against the number of teachers to be accommodated. Accordingly, we adopted a figure from an advertisement which had been published for recruitment of primary school teachers and took the number of available vacancies to be 34,540.

(2.) WE had directed that the said vacancies be filled up with the said number of trained teachers as a one -time measure to give effect to the undertakings which had been given on 18th January, 2006 and 23rd January, 2006. Accordingly, without issuing a Rule of Contempt, we had directed that the said vacancies be filled up from amongst the trained teachers, who are available in order of seniority.

(3.) SUBSEQUENTLY , however, it came to light that the number of candidates available were much more than the number of vacancies and there were also serious doubts raised about the eligibility of some of the candidates and some of the institutions from which they alleged to have received their training. In our order of 19th January, 2011, we had indicated that certain incongruities had been pointed out on behalf of the Petitioners with regard to the list of eligible candidates furnished by the State of Bihar.