IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH CWP No.12212 of 2011 DATE OF DECISION: October ,2011 Nirmala Devi .....Petitioner versus State Project Director, Sarv Shiksha Abhiyan and another …..…Respondents CORAM:- HON'BLE MRS. JUSTICE DAYA CHAUDHARY Present: Mr.R.K.Malik, Senior Advocate with Mr.Vijay Dahiya, Advocate for the petitioner. Mr.Shekhar Verma, Advocate for respondent No.1. Ms.Kavita Arora, AAG, Punjab. .. DAYA CHAUDHARY,J. Sarv Shiksha Abhiyan, respondent No.1 advertised 753 posts of Hindi Masters/Mistresses vide advertisement issued in the month of November 2010. As per advertisement, the basic and provisional qualification was graduate with 50% marks from a recognised University with Hindi as one of the elective subject in all the three years of Graduation and B.Ed with 50% marks along with Hindi as one of CWP No.12212 of 2011 the teaching subject Subsequently, a corrigendum was issued wherein eligibility was reduced from 50% to 45% and further relaxation was granted that in case any candidate is Post graduate in the subject concerned, then the requirement of the elective subject in the graduation shall be exempted. The petitioner was having BA with English, Hindi compulsory, Economics & Political Science with 43% marks and she was also MA in Hindu with 57.11% marks as well as B.Ed. with teaching subject Hindi by getting 63.80% marks. In addition to the said qualification, the petitioner was Prabhakar (Hons. In Hindi) with 52.50% marks as well as M.Phil (Hindi) with 59.33% marks. She has also passed the State Teachers Eligibility Test from Education Department, Haryana. The selection was on the basis of written test only and she appeared and secured 87th rank by getting 64 marks. The petitioner was called for counselling for verification of the documents as well as for posting but she was not considered on the ground that she was not fulfilling the essential qualifications prescribed for the Hindi teacher and she was having 43% marks in BA, whereas, the requirement was 45% marks. The representation was filed by the petitioner but still the case was not considered and ultimately by passing order dated 2 CWP No.12212 of 2011 20.6.2011, Annexure P.6, the claim of the petitioner was rejected on the ground that she does not fulfil one of the eligibility condition as she has passed BA with 43% marks, whereas, eligibility condition is 45% marks. The said order dated 20.6.2011 is subject matter of challenge before this Court. The learned counsel for the petitioner has challenged the impugned rejection order, mainly, on the ground that Prabhakar is equivalent to graduation with elective subject Hindi and many Universities, including Kurukshetra University has prepared the procedure to calculate the merit of Graduation of a candidate who has passed Graduation and Prabhakar/Gyani in the following manner: “For calculating the percentage of scores of BA by parts, the following procedure will be adopted: (a) Average of percentage of marks obtained in Prabhakar, Gyani or an equivalent MIL examination in English and in one more elective subject (if more than one subject has been cleared, the score in which he has got the highest marks would be taken into account). Prabhakar or Gyani will be considered as one elective subject and marks reduced proportionately to bring these at par with 3 CWP No.12212 of 2011 one elective subject in respect of maximum marks. (b) For candidates who have received their BA degree after doing Shastri or an equivalent Oriental Title examination, marks obtained in Shastri Examination will be considered as secured out of two subjects (elective) and calculated on the basis of the maximum number of marks in two elective subjects, after proportionately reducing them as in (a) above”. So as per the above calculation, the merit of the petitioner comes as under: Subject BA Part I BA Part II BA Part II Total English 35 35 46 116 Hindi 37 47 50 134 (comp.) Pol.Sc. 53 52 51 156 Economics38 35 37 110 Total 163 169 184 516 The petitioner has passed Prabhakar by obtaining 315 marks out of 600 marks and percentage of Prabhakar comes to 52.50. So if the merit is calculated on the basis of the formula given by the University, the merit of the petitioner comes to as under: 4 CWP No.12212 of 2011 % of marks of Prabhakar 52.50 % of marks in English in Graduation 116/300 (38.66%) % of marks in Pol. Sc. In Graduation156/300 (52%) So total merit of the petitioner comes to 52.50 + 38.66 + 52.00 = 143.16. So the merit comes to 47.72%. So even by calculating the merit on the basis of the formula given by the University, the merit of the petitioner comes to more than 47%. So the petitioner is duly eligible for the post and arbitrarily deprived from consideration.” As per argument of learned senior counsel for the petitioner, the petitioner has passed Prabhakar by obtaining 315 mars out of 600 marks and percentage comes to 52.50 and the petitioner was fulfilling the criteria as per requirement of the advertisement. If the merit of the petitioner is calculated on the basis of formula given by the Universality, then it comes to 47.72% and as such the petitioner is eligible for the post of Hindi teacher and her case has wrongly been rejected. In response to the notice of motion, reply has been filed. 5 CWP No.12212 of 2011 Learned counsel for respondent No.1 opposes the claim of the petitioner on the ground that formula prescribed by Kurukshetra University for calculation of marks is not binding upon the respondents as for making recruitment to the post of teachers, a notification was issued by National Council for Teacher Education in terms of and exercising the powers under Section 2(n) read with section 23(1) of the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009. It is also the argument of learned counsel for the respondent that NCTE does not recognised Prabhakar as qualification and minimum qualification of 45% marks is compulsory in view of notification dated 23.8.2010. The higher qualification of MA has been recognised only for limited purpose i.e. in lieu of necessity of elective subject at graduation level. Heard the arguments of learned counsel for the parties and have also perused the impugned order of rejection as well as other documents available on the file. October , 2011 (DAYA CHAUDHARY) KD JUDGE 6 CWP No.12212 of 2011 Reserved judgment IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH CWP No.12212 of 2011 DATE OF DECISION: October ,2011 Nirmala Devi .....Petitioner versus State Project Director, Sarv Shiksha Abhiyan and another …..…Respondents Present: Mr.R.K.Malik, Senior Advocate with Mr.Vijay Dahiya, Advocate for the petitioner. Mr.Shekhar Verma, Advocate for respondent No.1. Ms.Kavita Arora, AAG, Punjab. 7