HC order on UP teachers' selection a 'befitting reply' to BJP conspiracies: Rahul

Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi on Saturday (August 17) described the Allahabad High Court's ruling on the recruitment of 69,000 assistant teachers as a fitting response to the "BJP government's conspiracies against the reservation system."

The former Congress chief's remarks came after the Allahabad High Court directed the Uttar Pradesh government to prepare a fresh selection list for the appointment of 69,000 assistant teachers in the state.

Rahul's jibe

"The Allahabad High Court's decision on the recruitment of 69,000 assistant teachers is a befitting reply to the conspiracies of the BJP government which is playing with the reservation system," Gandhi said in a post in Hindi on X.

This is not only the victory of thousands of youths like Amit Maurya who have been struggling in the streets in winter, summer and rain for the last five years but also of every warrior fighting the battle for social justice, he said.

"The BJP's stubbornness to snatch away reservation has pushed the future of hundreds of innocent candidates into darkness," Gandhi alleged.

'BJP the culprit'

The BJP is the culprit for those who will get jobs through the new list after facing hardships for five years and also those whose names will now be removed from the selected list.

"The BJP government, which is forcing those who want to study to fight, is the enemy of the youth in the true sense," Gandhi said.

He also tagged one of his posts from February in which he had said, "UP's 69,000 teacher recruitment scam is proof of BJP's anti-reservation mentality. By ignoring Basic Education Rules, 1981 and Reservation Rules, 1994, the BJP government snatched the rights of Dalits and backward classes from them." "The aggrieved students met me and told me that in this recruitment, OBC category got only 3.86% reservation instead of 27% and SC category got only 16.6% reservation instead of 21%. This irregularity is related to about 19,000 posts and not making the original list brings this entire recruitment process under suspicion," he had said.

The HC set aside the selection lists issued in June 2020 and January 2022, which included 6,800 candidates.

A bench comprising Justice A R Masoodi and Justice Brijraj Singh issued the order while disposing of 90 special appeals filed by Mahendra Pal and others, challenging a March 13 single-judge order.

Court upholds decision

The court upheld the single-judge's decision to cancel the January 5, 2022 selection list of 6,800 candidates belonging to the reserved category.

The bench instructed the state government and other authorities concerned to complete the process of issuing the new selection list within three months.

The court said that while preparing the new selection list, any adverse impact on the currently employed assistant teachers should be mitigated by allowing them to complete the ongoing academic session. This is intended to prevent disruption in the students' education, it said.

(With agency inputs)