According to reports, the Odisha government has filed a challenge against the Orissa High Court’s decision to reject the merit list that the Odisha School Education Programme Authority (OSEPA) created in order to hire junior teachers for all of the State’s primary and upper primary schools.
The case will next be heard on April 29.
The Orissa High Court ordered OSEPA to create a new draft merit list last month in order to appoint more than 18,000 junior teachers to the state’s primary (Class I through V) and upper primary (Class V through VIII) classrooms.
On January 31, the High Court wrapped up its consideration of the pleas claiming anomalies in the hiring procedure for junior teachers and postponed making an interim ruling.
Following a computer-based exam, OSEPA released the draft merit list on January 15 for document verification on January 20 and 21. A number of petitions contested the list, arguing that OSEPA had published more of a state merit list without following the process, despite the School and Mass Education department’s August 22, 2023 guidelines on junior teacher engagement providing for district-wise draft merit list. They claimed that as a result, a number of candidates who may have made the district-wise list were left off of it.
Notably, on October 23, 2023, an announcement was made regarding the hiring of approximately 20,000 junior teachers in Odisha. Later, a few applicants filed a lawsuit in the High Court, claiming that the hiring process had been flawed.
The Odisha government was directed by Justice BP Satapathy’s one-judge bench to postpone the final selection and appointment of junior teachers until the next hearing after the petition’s initial hearing on January 19.
