PATNA: The Patna high court directed the state government on Thursday to conduct state teachers’ eligibility test (STET), after assessing its requirement, for candidates of commerce subject within six months’ time as they were not allowed to take part in the same examination conducted last year.
A bench of Justice Anil Kumar Upadhyay directed the state government to finalise its assessment that what count of posts for commerce teachers are required to be filled at secondary and senior secondary level in government schools across state, notify those vacant posts within a period of three months and send the requisition to Bihar School Examination Board (BSEB) for conduct STET for such candidates.
The bench simultaneously disposed of the writ petitions of Mohammad Afroz and several others who had moved high court in August last year after commerce background candidates were left in lurch as they were not allowed to take part in STET-2019, which was conducted after a gap of almost nine years in state.
The high court’s order for conducting the exam for commerce candidates is expected to bring relief for around 20000 commerce stream STET aspirants in the state who were unable to take part in the examination conducted last year.
The petitioners moved the high court urging that the state government be directed to allow them to apply for STET after conducting it afresh.
They had also made an alternative prayer that if holding fresh tests were not possible, then the vacant seats for commerce subject teachers be notified, advertised and then STET be conducted for them separately as the examination was already completed till the time they had moved court.
Counsel Ritika Rani, along with counsels Dinu Kumar and Ritu Raj, appearing for the petitioners had submitted that even if the examination was conducted, it doesn’t snatch the right of the deserving candidates of commerce stream for taking part in recruitment.
They had submitted that more than 1095 posts of commerce teachers are lying vacant in secondary and senior secondary level in government schools across state.
BSEB had submitted before the court that it only conducts the test as per requisition sent by the state government against vacancies.
Counsel Gyan Prakash had appeared for the board.
The state government had submitted that it didn’t allow commerce subject candidates in the STET last year as it didn’t have the requirement.
Standing counsel Jitendra Kumar Roy along with Vinita Singh, appearing for state government, had submitted that required infrastructure is being developed for appointing commerce teachers and it is being looked into that how many such teachers are required in the government schools.
The STET-2019 was conducted on January 28 last year but the entire examination was scrapped over probable question leak at five centres and improper question set in social science on May 16.
The re-examination in online mode was conducted between September 9 and September 21 last year for 2.47 lakh registered candidates for appointment against 37,335 vacant posts of teachers in English, Hindi, Sanskrit, Urdu, maths, science, social science, physics, chemistry, biology, zoology and computer science in the government school.