- (1.) S. R. Singh, J. The question that crops up for determination by the Court in the aforesaid writ petitions, is : whether exclusion of the candidates who have passed Intermediate Examination of the Board of High School and Intermediate Education, U. P. or any other qualification recognised by the State Government as equivalent there together with training qualification of B. T. C. (Correspondence) from the field of consideration for appointment to the posts of Assistant Teachers of Junior Basic Schools, recruitment to which is admittedly governed by the U. P. Basic Education (Teachers) Service Rules, 1981 (in short 'the Rules') is illegal, arbitrary and violative of any Constitutional or Statutory provisions.
(2.) THE petitioners in ail the writ petitions aforesaid have, it is alleged, passed intermediate Examination of the Board of High School and Interme diate Education, U, P. and they have also, to their credit, the training quali fication of B. T. C. (Correspondence) Course in that they have passed Adhyapak (Basic) Prashikshan Pariksha that is to say Teachers (Basic) Training Examination conducted by Registrar, Departmental Examination, U. P. and were awarded certificates known as Adhyapak (Basic) Prashikshan (Patracharit) Pariksha, 1983 on 1986 depending on the year of examination conducted by Registrar, Departmental Examination, U. P. According to them, the Director of Education (Basic) U. P. Lucknow by his letter dated 18-1-1986 has recognised B. T. C. (Correspondence) training as equivalent to B. T. C. Training and therefore the candidates having passed B. T. C. (Correspondence) Examination are qualified for appointment in Junior Basic Schools controlled and run by the U. P. Board of Basic Education. Having heard learned counsel appearing for parties and having given my anxious consideration to the point involved in the case, I am of the considered view that exclusion of candidates having B. T. C. (Correspondence) Training qualification from the field of eligibility and consideration for appointment to the posts of Assistant teachers in Junior Basic Schools is neither arbitrary nor violative of any Statutory Rules or Constitutional Pro visions. The essential academic qualification for the posts in question as laid down in Rule 8 (1) of the Rules is as below : "intermediate Examination of the Board of High School and Inter mediate Education U. P. or any other qualification recognised by the State Government as equivalent thereto together with the training qualification consisting of Basic Teacher's Certificate, Hindustani Teacher's Certificate, Junior Teacher's Certificate, Certificate of Teaching or any other training course recognised by the State Government as equivalent thereto : provided that the essential qualification for candidate who has passed the required training course shall be the same which was prescribed for admis sion to the said training course. " The argument advanced by the counsel for the petitioners is that the petitioners are possessed of training qualification and they cannot be discriminated merely because training qualification has been acquired by them through correspondence course and in support of their contention they placed reliance on the letter dated 18-1-1986 of the Director of Education (Basic) U. P. Lucknow the relevant portion of which reads as under
(3.) LEARNED counsel appearing for the petitioners also placed reliance on a single Judge decision in Ramesh Pratap Singh v. State of U. P. and others, 1993 (21) ALR 88, holding that Rule 8 does not make any distinction between two types of certificates one obtained from a regular course and the other through a correspondence course. Reliance was also placed on another single Judge decision in Civil Misc. Writ Petition No. 22828 of 1991, Vishwambhar Nath Misra and others v. Basic Shiksha Parishad, U. P. Allahabad and others, following the decision in Ramesh Pratap Singh (supra ). It may be observed that B. T. C. (Correspondence) training examina tion used to be held once in a while with a view to imparting in-service training to untrained teachers already in employment and/or granting them exemption from training on the basis of a minimal test pursuant to Govern ment Orders issued from time to time. One such Government Order runs as below :;