Six teachers who failed TET approach Madras HC again

CHENNAI: Nine days after a single judge of the Madras high court refused to interfere with the impending ouster of more than 1,500 government school teachers who failed in teachers' eligibility test (TET), a few of them approached a vacation bench challenging the order.
A vacation bench of Justice S Vaidyanathan and Justice Subramonium Prasad, before which a writ appeal filed by six teachers seeking to set aside the April 30 single judge order came up for hearing on Wednesday, directed the registry to number the appeal and posted it after vacation.
The single judge had said: "It is brought to the notice of this court that even the government of India in a letter dated February 27, addressed to the principal secretary of the school education department, categorically stated that the time limit for completion of the training programme for in-service untrained elementary teachers by March 31, is mandated by the amendment in the RTE Act by Parliament. Therefore, it would not be possible to consider any request related to the extension of the deadline for training the untrained in-service elementary teachers."
The appellant teachers, in their present appeal, said that they did not find any amendment to the RTE Act and added that the judge ought to have directed the authorities to produce the said amendment which fixed March 31 as the deadline for passing the TET.
Noting that the date for the written exam had not yet been announced, they said that in the absence of a date prior to March 31 it would be impossible for them to pass the test .
The appeal further said that the judge ought to have fixed a deadline for them to pass TET to a date after the publication of the result of the 2019 TET.