UP teachers' recruitment: Protesters caned by police

The police used canes to disperse people protesting here Friday against two court rulings that quashed the selection of over 12,000 government teachers and ordered a CBI probe into the process to appoint 68,500 more.

The Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court had struck down Thursday the selection of 12,460 assistant teachers through an exam advertised in 2016, during the term of the Akhilesh Yadav government.

The other order came as a major embarrassment for the Yogi Adityanath government. The bench directed the CBI to investigate a recruitment exercise begun earlier this year to fill 68,500 posts.

The protesters demonstrated in front of the Uttar Pradesh Vidhan Sabha and tried to break a police cordon, when security personnel used canes to stop them from proceeding further.

The police said nobody was injured. But a protester claimed that some of them were hurt when they were hit by lathis or fell on the ground in the stampede-like situation near the Hazratganj crossing.

There were traffic snarls on arterial roads.

The protesters displayed banners that read "rozgar virodhi sarkar" (anti-employment government) and "yuvaon ke saath dhoka" (youths betrayed).

In the order cancelling the selection of 12,460 assistant teachers, the court said the Uttar Pradesh Basic Education (Teachers) Service Rules, 1981 were not followed.

The rules were said to have been broken to allow candidates belonging to districts having no vacancies to select any other district as their first priority for counselling.

In the other order by the same judge, the court asked the Central Bureau of Investigation to probe allegations of corruption in the process to fill 68,500 posts in primary schools through the Assistant Teachers Recruitment Examination, 2018.

The court directed the CBI to complete the investigation within six months and submit a progress report to it on November 26.

Issuing directions on a bunch of writ petitions in the 2018 case, Justice Irshad Ali said the court is prima facie satisfied that there is material evidence to establish that the examination authorities misused their power to give undue advantage to the candidates of their choice.

Both recruitment exercises were already on hold.

In the 2016 case, the selected candidates were not given appointment letters after the court earlier ordered a stay.

The court has now directed that the selection process should begin afresh in 2016 case and be completed within three months.