Supreme Court modifies stay order; allows Karnataka govt to appoint 11,494 Graduate Primary Teachers

New Delhi: The Supreme Court has modified its stay on the appointment of 11,494 candidates as Graduate Primary Teachers in 35 educational districts of Karnataka, saying their appointments would be subject to the outcome of pending petitions concerning contentious issue of income and caste certificates of married women.

A bench of Justices Hima Kohli and Ahsanuddin Amanullah allowed the state government to let the teachers continue working in schools as they were doing prior to January 3, 2024, when the top court suspended their appointments.

After the stay order, the Karnataka government has filed an affidavit contending that out of the selected candidates, 6,649 fall under the category of general merit, 1,953 under the Scheduled Caste category, 428 under the Scheduled Tribe category, and 3841 under the OBC category.

This is besides those who fall under the category of married women who seek to be considered in OBC category based on their parents’ income and caste certificate. The number of candidates who fall under the category of married women is 481.

The state government, represented by Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, senior advocate Devdatt Kamat, and Additional Advocate General Nishanth Patil, clarified that the authorities have kept aside 481 notified posts to be filled up subject to the final outcome of the present litigation.

"In other words, if married women candidates who claim reservation on the basis of the income of their parents’ ultimately succeed in the present petition, they shall be entitled to appointment against the said posts, subject to their fulfilling all other eligibility criteria," they said.

This would mean that if the married women candidates do not qualify for appointment on the strength of their parents’ income and caste certificate, they would be considered in the general merit category on the basis of their overall merit.

The court allowed the application for its January 3, 2024 order and posted the matter for hearing on March 12, 2024.

On January 3, 2024, the top court had stayed the Karnataka HC's division bench order allowing the state government to go ahead with recruitment as per the list of March 08, 2023. The court's order has come on a batch of petitions filed by unsuccessful candidates. The controversy arose out of rejection of income-cum-caste certificate and treating married women candidates belonging to OBC category as general category candidates.

Subsequently, the Karnataka government filed an application to modify January 3, 2024 order to avoid grave consequences not only to working teachers but to students as well.

The application filed through advocate D L Chidananda also claimed that the State of Karnataka would be disabled from delivering on its obligation to promote high standards of primary education if the stay continued.