The Karnataka High Court has granted the state government permission to appoint 13,352 teachers

The Karnataka High Court granted the state government permission on Thursday to employ 13,352 teachers for classes 6 to 8, whose names were announced in a list on March 8, 2023. Candidates who were chosen based on the orders of a single-judge panel on January 30, 2023, will be postponed till the Karnataka State Administrative Tribunal (KSAT) rules on their appeal to the selection procedure, it added.

The process of appointing 15,000 teachers began in February 2022 with a letter from the Deputy Director of Public Instructions (DDPI). On November 18, 2022, the government announced the provisional 1:1 list. Hundreds of Other Backward Caste (OBC) married female applicants had addressed the single judge, claiming that they had been marked as General Merit candidates despite providing income and caste certificates for their dads rather than their spouses. The state insisted that the rules only allowed certifications from married women's husbands to be accepted.

However, the solitary court directed that the income and caste certifications of these candidates' husbands be reviewed. Applicants who did not make the new list of 13,352 selected applicants filed appeals with the Division Bench. However, the Division Bench comprising Chief Justice Prasanna B Varale and Justice MGS Kamal ruled on Thursday that the single-judge bench lacked jurisdiction to hear the petitions in the first place. The list has now been compiled by the authorities in accordance with the single-judge decision. However, ''considering the imminent requirement of Graduate Primary School Teachers and large vacancies across the state, and in the interest of the students of 6 to 8 standards who are left high and dry for lack of teachers,'' the bench said.

The appointment of candidates ''who have not submitted the caste-cum-income certificate in the form prescribed in the notification and which is not in terms of Government Order and who are included in the list in view of the order passed by a learned Single Judge should be deferred until the outcome of the challenge,'' it said. The prior list, released on November 18, 2022, was overturned by a single-judge court led by Justice M Naga Prasanna. 451 previously selected candidates were left off the revised list, which was announced on March 8, 2023.

Concerning these candidates, the division bench stated, ''it is clarified that if the eligibility of such candidates who have not furnished the caste-cum-income certificate in the prescribed form is held to be invalid, such posts may be filled from among the candidates who have been excluded on merits and the candidates who have submitted certificates in the prescribed form.''