Relief to 7.8 K teachers; court directs to continue service & salary till further orders

Aurangabad, Sept 20:

In its interim judgement, the Aurangabad bench of Bombay High Court comprising Justice Ravindra Ghuge and Justice Arun Pedenkar on Tuesday issued directives on Tuesday not to remove 7,880 teachers from their service till further orders and also release their salary regularly. This provided relief to the teachers.

According to details, the Maharashtra State Council of Examination (MSCE) conducted Maharashtra Teacher’s Eligibility Test (MahaTET) in 2020. During an investigation, it was found that 7,880 candidates who were declared failed or had fewer marks tampered with the result allegedly to get a pass result.

On the basis of the TET certificate, many of them obtained jobs. Pune Cyber police registered a case against those who secured a TET pass certificate through unfair means. The commissioner of MSCE issued orders on August 3, 2022, to remove 7,880 teachers from service and stop their salary. The School Education Department director issued directives on August 18 to freeze the ‘Shalarth ID’ of teachers involved in the TET scam.

Around 1000 teachers from the Aurangabad division challenged the orders of the education commissioner and director by filing petitions through different lawyers. A collective hearing was held on today.

The lawyers of the petitioners brought to the notice of the court that this was one-sided action. In the list of candidates, some of them are peons and clerks who took the test just to enhance their educational eligibility.

“Also, a few secondary school teachers are on the list, who do not require TET qualification. Action is being taken against such teachers as well. The petitioners were not allowed to present their say and it is against denying them natural justice,” the lawyers said.

Hearing the arguments, the court issued orders today not to remove the petitioners from the job and pay their salary regularly till further orders. The court said that teachers' salary hikes can be stopped.

Veteran lawyers V D Sapkal, Sambhaji Tope, Siddheshwar Thombre, Sachin Deshmukh, Vilas Panpatte, Abasaheb Shinde, Shailesh Brahme, Prahlad Bachate and Tukaram Vyanjane appeared for the petitioners. Adv S K Tambe represented the Government.

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What is TET scam?

A youth who wish work as a teacher in primary schools will have to qualify MahaTET compulsorily. This is the main condition for the job. The MSCE conducted an eligibility test online at the different centres across the State on January 19, 2020.

Corrections were made in the records of the education department after the irregularities in the examination surfaced. All the teachers involved in the scam were asked not to forward anything online from their login. Many teachers challenged the orders.