Cuttack, May 24: Orissa High Court has held it necessary for aspiring teachers to have a good academic record to maintain the best standards of education.

The court gave the ruling while setting aside a State Administrative Tribunal (SAT) order on selection of lecturers for government colleges.

The Odisha Public Service Commission (OPSC) had shortlisted candidates for interview on the basis of their academic record and SAT had quashed the process.

The OPSC, in keeping with UGC guidelines, had fixed 55 per cent marks in the  discipline concerned in the postgraduation level for those applying for lecturer’s post. Thereafter, to shortlist candidates for interview, OPSC had given 20 per cent weightage to an aspirant’s HSC result, 20 per cent to Plus Two, 20 per cent to graduation and 40 per cent to PG result.
Several candidates, who were not shortlisted for the interview, moved SAT to challenge the OPSC’s screening process. In its final order, SAT had quashed the OPSC’s screening process as improper.

SAT held that screening should have been based on minimum qualification required for the job and not on the basis of good academic record. Those initially shortlisted moved the HC against SAT’s order. The HC held the SAT order as “not sustainable” and ruled that the OPSC “has not committed any unfairness or non-transparency rather the statute has been followed for making the selection”.

“We are of the view that the Commission has not erred in adopting the process for screening out the candidates. The Commission rather has bifurcated the selection process in two stages only for scrutinising the candidature of one or the other candidates to give focus on the more meritorious candidates to choose the best among all,” the division bench of Justice Sanju Panda and Justice Surya Narayan Prasad observed in the May 18 order. The judges said: “If a candidate is having no good academic record from HSC to the graduation level and if he obtained good marks in the postgraduate level and thereafter, he cannot be said to be a perfect candidate and it will not be proper to ignore the educational qualification right from the HSC to the graduation level, this is for the reason that the post is to impart teaching in higher education.”