Guwahati, Jan. 20: After being slammed by the Gauhati High Court over anomalies in recruitment of constables, Dispur today heaved a sigh of relief as the court declined to halt the selection process for primary and upper primary teachers.

The current selection process initiated by the state government is for recruitment of 5,372 teachers at the primary level and 2,078 at the upper primary level.

Justice Ranjan Gogoi held that it would be inappropriate for the court to halt the selection process at the instance of the All Assam OBB Teachers? Association as it did not avail of the remedy for enforcing regularisation of jobs of 5,900 teachers appointed under the OBB scheme in 2002.

The Gauhati High Court, vide an earlier judgment on April 8, 2002, had directed the regularisation of the jobs of OBB teachers. The order by a single-judge bench had been challenged and the writ petition is yet to be finally adjudicated by a division bench of Gauhati High Court.

The division bench had directed that the single judge?s order for regularisation of 5,900 OBB teachers is to be complied with by the government, notwithstanding the writ appeal, and salaries of OBB teachers were directed to be paid.

However, the government neither pursued the appeal for its expeditious disposal nor took any step for compliance of the high court?s order for salary payment and regularisation of OBB teachers. However, the OBB Teachers? Association did not initiate any contempt proceedings and instead, filed the instant writ petition, claiming that the fresh selection process pursuant to an advertisement dated December 2 last year should not be permitted before they are regularised in their respective posts.

It was argued by the plaintiff?s advocates B.D. Goswami and B.C. Choudhury that if fresh selection and appointments are made in over 7,450 posts, no posts would be available for regularisation of the OBB teachers.

Appearing for the state education department, advocates M.K. Choudhury and Manas Pathak contended that OBB teachers were appointed under a centrally-sponsored scheme and cannot have a claim over about 7,450 posts of primary and upper primary teachers advertised by Dispur on December 2 last year. Therefore, the selection process should not be stayed as more than four lakh candidates have applied for the posts advertised, they argued.

The high court, while refusing to stay the selection process, directed that all the candidates who participate in the current selection process be informed by the government of the fact that the selection process would be subject to further orders of the court.