- (1.) CONTEMPT Petition (C) No. 297 of 2007, filed in S.L.P. (C) No. 22882 of 2004, arose out of an alleged breach of undertaking said to have been given on 18th January, 2006, by the State of Bihar and the order passed on the basis thereof on 23rd January, 2006, by this Court in S.L.P. (C) No. 22882 -22888 of 2004. As we have indicated in our order dated 9th January, 2009, a number of writ petitions had been filed against the State of Bihar, raising issues relating to recruitment of teachers in primary schools. At one stage, it was brought to our notice that on account of changes in the policy, trained teachers who were in place at the time when the undertakings were given, could not be accommodated. Accordingly, we had passed orders directing that the trained teachers who at one time were less than the number of vacant posts, should be given appointment in the vacancies that were available. Subsequently, however, there was some discrepancy as to the number of vacancies available as against the number of teachers to be accommodated. Accordingly, we adopted a figure from an advertisement which had been published for recruitment of primary school teachers and took the number of available vacancies to be 34,540.
(2.) WE had directed that the said vacancies be filled up with the said number of trained teachers as a one -time measure to give effect to the undertakings which had been given on 18th January, 2006 and 23rd January, 2006. Accordingly, without issuing a Rule of Contempt, we had directed that the said vacancies be filled up from amongst the trained teachers, who are available in order of seniority.
(3.) SUBSEQUENTLY , however, it came to light that the number of candidates available were much more than the number of vacancies and there were also serious doubts raised about the eligibility of some of the candidates and some of the institutions from which they alleged to have received their training. In our order of 19th January, 2011, we had indicated that certain incongruities had been pointed out on behalf of the Petitioners with regard to the list of eligible candidates furnished by the State of Bihar. As a result, the State of Bihar, was directed to bring out a fresh list in terms of the orders which we had passed on 9th December, 2009 and 12th May, 2010, in order of seniority, incorporating the names of each and every candidate and the category to which they belonged. As the lists prepared were disputed, we thought it fit that in order to resolve the anomalies, a neutral person should be entrusted with the work of settling the list over which the dispute had arisen and, accordingly, by the said order we appointed Justice V.A. Mohta, a retired Judge of the Bombay High Court, who retired as Chief Justice of the Orissa High Court, as Special Officer in whose presence the list could be settled. However, since Justice Mohta expressed his desire to be relieved of the responsibility, by our order dated 24th February, 2011, while relieving Justice V.A. Mohta of the responsibility of acting as the Special Officer, we appointed Mr. Justice S.K. Chattopadhyay, a retired Judge of the Patna High Court in his place, to take up and complete the finalization of the seniority list.;