Jabalpur High Court has directed state government to appoint differently-able candidates selected through PSC 2017 for assistant professors as per the revised quota. The high court has asked the department of higher education (DHE) to recruit the selected candidates as per the new fixed quota by 7 September and then inform the court.
The ruling of Jabalpur High Court in appointment of differently-able candidates has proved a major setback for the state government.
On April 29, the Jabalpur High Court while giving an order in favour of differently-able candidates had directed the DHE to give them appointment within a month's time.
The state government had calculated and set 6% quota for the differently-able on the number of advertised posts. However, candidates contested the set reservation and asked the government to calculate it on basis of the number of sanctioned posts and not on the posts advertised.
Following the HC ruling, the department was supposed to prepare a reservation roster for the posts of differently-able, prepare a merit list and issue appointment letters. But that could not be done till date.
The court also said that newly created posts should also be counted and included to calculate the quota meant for differently-abled candidates. Giving example of Hindi subject, the court said that according to 2011 gazette notification the number of posts for the subject were 586. In advertisement issued for PSC 2017 on April, 12, 2018, in all 114 new created posts were added thus taking the total for Hindi subject posts to 700.
According to 6% reservation for differently-able, 42 posts should have been given to them but the government allotted only 15 posts. Similarly for commerce subject 750 posts, 45 posts should have been given to the differently-able but the figure actually stood at 13.
Following the court's ruling, the number of seats under differently-able quota will increase significantly and many candidates in the waiting list could get appointments. However, the revised merit list will do have a cascading effect on the overall merit list.
The PSC 2017 recruitment exam for assistant professors, sports officers and librarians remained mired in controversies from day one. Department of higher education had to face embarrassment in ruling pertaining to women quota as well.
