New Delhi [India], March 13 : The Supreme Court has ordered all the states and Union Territories to notify by March 28 the sanctioned posts of teachers for special children and immediately begin the selection procedure of the same.
Justice Sudhanshu Dhulia and Justice K Vinod Chandran has said that those teachers working on an ad-hoc basis in different states be regularised by a scrutiny committee on the merits of each candidate.
The apex court made it clear that selection and appointment should be made of qualified or competent or eligible teachers only.
"Each states and UTs shall come out with notifications with the number of posts that they have sanctioned for teachers who have to impart education to children with special needs. After the posts have been sanctioned and notified, which shall be done positively within a period of three weeks from today i.e. on or before March 28, 2025, these posts need to be advertised at least in two newspapers having wide circulation in the respective states as well as on the website of the Department of Education and also on the official government website of each of the states," the bench stated in its order.
The order of the top court came a petition filed by Rajneesh Kumar Pandey and others, highlighting the lack of special educators in Uttar Pradesh and other states. Advocate Prashant Shukla represented Pandey in the case.
The top court noted that despite its 2021 judgment, none of the states or Union Territories made appointments on such sanctioned posts.
A large majority of the states didn't even identify the sanctioned posts, despite there being figures relating to children with special needs, said the apex court.
Further, the apex court recorded that in several states and Union Territories, ad hoc contractual teachers were imparting education and conducting classes of such children.
"We have also been informed that in some of the states, these teachers have been continuing for the last 20 years, approximately. For these reasons, the states shall immediately constitute a screening committee," it has stated in its order.
The committee would consist of the State Commissioner for Persons with Disabilities, Secretary, Education of the Education Department, a nominee of the Rehabilitation Council of India, who was a field expert.
The bench said that in case there is no disability commissioner available in any state, in that case only he/she shall be substituted by the legal representative or its law secretary.
The top court further said that those state where posts have already been sanctioned should immediately start the selection process.
"We also make it clear that in some of the states such as Sikkim, Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland and Manipur have stated that there have been some logistical problems for the appointment of trained teachers in their state too. All the same, they shall initiate the exercise, which shall be subject to the availability of teachers with qualifications as indicated above," said the top court and posted the matter for hearing on July 15.
The petition filed by some teachers, who claim to have undertaken the required training to teach children with special needs, submitted that to make Right to Education a success, it was essential to appoint qualified professionals in each school to help kids prepare for life challenges.
Advocate Shukla said Pandey, one of the teacher, was a special educator working on contract basis in Uttar Pradesh and he filed case in 2016 and the court treated the petition as PIL and granted relief to the special educators of entire country as there is already huge shortage of teachers to teach children with special need.