HC Halts Final Selection Of Junior Teachers Recruitment In Odisha Till Jan 24

Cuttack: The Orissa High Court has directed the state government to refrain from going ahead with the final selection and appointment of junior teachers till the next hearing on January 24.

However, the single-judge bench granted permission for the document verification process scheduled for January 20 and 21.

The next hearing on the case has been listed for January 24. The court was on Friday hearing a petition filed by some job aspirants.

“Since basing on the impugned draft result sheet, verification of documents has been fixed to 20th & 21st of this month, let the process with regard to verification of the documents continue on the date fixed, but no final decision be taken with regard to final selection and appointment till January 24, 2024,” said the HC order.

After publication of the draft merit list of the recruitment drive, many aspirants alleged irregularities and staged a protest outside the office of the Odisha School Education Programme Authority (OSEPA) in Bhubaneswar on Thursday. They lamented that the cut-off marks were not released prior to the publication of merit list.

Many aspirants alleged that there have been irregularities in the Computer-Based Test (CBT) for the recruitment of Junior Teachers. Another serious allegation they made was that several examinees with higher scores had not been placed in the merit list.

Many examinees having secured more marks have been left out of the merit list while there is no clarity about how many of the successful candidates are from SC, ST, and UR categories, the agitating aspirants alleged.

Refuting the allegations, OSEPA Director Anupam Shah said a draft merit list of 18,805 candidates was published following objections to the answer keys. He assured that the evaluation, based on CBT scores, adhered to the normal process, rejecting claims of irregularities in the test.