UP to file special petition against HC order on Urdu teachers

Lucknow, Sep 16 (UNI) The Uttar Pradesh government today decided to file a Special Petition in the Allahabad High Court against the latter's decision to quash the appointment of 13,000 Urdu primary teachers.

Talking to reporters here, Principal Secretary to the Chief Minister, Shailesh Krishna said here that though the government was yet to receive the official copy of the High Court order, it would file a special petition against the order quashing appoinment of 13,000 Urdu teachers. ''The grounds for the petition will be decided after studying the judgement...but we have decided to file the Special Petition next week,'' he said. The government is likely to get the copy of the order tomorrow.

He said the teachers should not lose heart as the government was aware of their problems. ''We will protect their interests,'' he added.

While a total of 13,000 teachers were selected, 8000 are undergoing a two-year training which began 10 months ago.

The HC on Friday had annulled the recruitment of teachers made by the previous Mulayam Singh Yadav government.

A single-judge bench comprising Justice Arun Tandon had ruled that Urdu is not one of the language subjects included in the syllabus of nursery or junior basic schools. Therefore, no teacher for imparting education in Urdu is required in such institutions.

The court order comes close on the heels of Chief Minister Mayawati's decision to sack 6,504 police constables recruited during the previous regime.

Mr Krishna claimed that unlike the police recruitment scam in which gross irregularities were unearthed, in this case, no irregularity is alleged from any quarter. ''It is a legal matter,'' he added.

Urdu teachers staged a protest demonstration before the basic education directorate here yesterday.

The court ruling came on a writ petition moved by a group of individuals led by a Muslim girl, Sumbul Naqvi, who was of the view that the premise of the appointments was legally not tenable.

UNI