HC stays appointment of 69,000 teachers in Uttar Pradesh

LUCKNOW: A Lucknow bench of Allahabad high court on Wednesday stayed the appointment of 69,000 assistant teachers in the state till, finding the result declared on May 8 prima facie affected by wrong and ambiguous evaluation of answers.
“The Notification issued on May 8, 2020 whereby the final answer key has been issued is hereby stayed, and all proceedings pursuant to same are also stayed till the next date of listing,” court said. A bench of justice Alok Mathur passed the above interim order while hearing as many as 31 writ petitions moved by hundreds of unsuccessful candidates individually.
The court has asked the state’s Examination Regulatory Authority to get the answer copies and objections examined by a panel of experts to be appointed by the UGC and submit an affidavit by July 12.
Pronouncing the order reserved on June 1, the court said, “In the present case, the court has examined certain questions (asked in the examination) and is of the considered opinion that there has been a material error in evaluation of the question paper due to which a large number of candidates are liable to suffer for no fault of theirs.” The court declined argument of advocate general Raghvendra Singh that though certain questions may be argumentative and may have more than one correct answer, but even then the Court need not interfere in the issue inasmuch as the presumption should go in favour of the examining authority.
Rebutting the said argument, the court said, “Once it is clear that there could be more than one correct answers in an objective type question where several options have been provided by the examining authority, the candidate is required to select only one correct answer, then it is incumbent, necessary and mandatory that in fact there should only be one correct answer which could be selected by the candidate, otherwise, he would be liable for additional marks for the negligence of the examining authority and he need not be made to suffer.”