Rejecting BCom Passouts For Teachers’ Post Discriminatory: Orissa HC

Cuttack: The Orissa High Court has ruled that a BCom degree holder cannot be disqualified from the post of trained graduate teachers (TGT) in government secondary schools in Odisha on the ground that their graduation degree course does not have two school subjects.

The court observed that such disqualification would amount to artificial discrimination after some BCom degree holders sought its intervention after their candidature was rejected even though they had Communicative English and Business Economics as subjects.

Notably, candidates are required to English, Odia, Sanskrit, History, Geography, Economics, Political Science, Indian Economy, Landmarks in Indian History, Indian Geography, and Indian Polity either as pass/honours/elective/optional/compulsory subjects. to be eligible for TGTs as per the eligibility criteria fixed by the School and Mass Education Department.

The single-judge bench of Justice SK Panigrahi, however, said, “When all across the state, the course of English is called Communicative English and Economics is called Business Economics in the BCom degree, then denying all BCom graduates the opportunity to be successful in being appointed as a trained graduate teacher using this hyper-technical approach is wholly arbitrary and amounts to an artificial discrimination which cannot hold in law.”

Terming the rejection of the candidates despite possessing all requisite and essential qualifications and after qualifying the computer-based test (CBT) as erroneous and arbitrary, the court directed the department to reconsider them for the posts.