Teachers’ recruitment: State govt defends dropping ‘illegal’ domicile clause

Chief secretary Amir Subhani said the decision was taken to suit the constitutional provisions and judgments of various courts, including the Supreme Court.

The Bihar government on Monday defended its decision to remove the domicile requirement for recruitment of teachers for state-run schools, which has led to angry protests by candidates and some political parties.

A protest against dropping the domicile criterion for recruitment of school teachers in Bihar, in Patna on Monday. (Santosh Kumar/HT)

Addressing a press conference, chief secretary Amir Subhani said the decision was taken to suit the constitutional provisions and judgments of various courts, including the Supreme Court.

Referring to provisions in Article 16 of the Constitution, Subhani said the state government is not allowed to make distinctions on the basis of caste, religion, birthplace, residence, etc, in respect of appointments. “However, only those having the proven domicile of Bihar would be given the facilities of reservation,” he said.

The chief secretary said the state government had to do away with the domicile clause from the recruitment rules after it had to furnish replies in the courts on the petitions filed there. “We removed the domicile provisions, as we realised it was not only illegal but unconstitutional also. Moreover, other state governments too follow the same rules in their recruitment. The states, which went ahead with restricting the appointments for the local residents, had to amend the provision after it was struck down in the court of law,” said Subhani.

He further stated that the recruitment drives carried out by the Bihar Public Service Commission (BPSC) in the past were also open to all. “The BPSC had selected the teachers for appointment in 1994, 1999 and 2000 without the domicile clause. The recruitment was carried out as per the rules framed in 1991,” Subhani said, adding that the absence of residential restrictions had little impact on eligibility of local candidates in the past.

To buttress his point, the CS said that the BPSC had appointed around 1.68 lakh teachers in 2012, in which only 3,413 natives of other states qualified for the job. He said that imposition of regressive provisions in the recruitment might also impact the natives of Bihar participating in the recruitment of other states.

Additional chief secretary (education) KK Pathak, who was also present, clarified that the states seeking to impose any kind of restriction to favour local aspirants had to finally withdraw it. “The Jharkhand government, too, which had rigorous provision for reservation in the government jobs, had to amend the rules after the same was challenged in the apex court in 2022,” said Pathak.

The officials also advised the protesting aspirants to call off the agitation and warned of action in cases of indiscipline.

Teachers plan to lay siege to legislature

Apparently unmoved by the state government’s call to withdraw the agitation, teachers owing allegiance to the Bihar Shikshal Sangharsh Morcha, a confederation of 14-15 association of teachers, have decided to intensify their protest lay siege to the state legislature on July 11. The monsoon session of the state legislature is slated to begin on July 10.

On July 1, a huge number of protesters had taken out a march from Gandhi Maidan to Raj Bhawan in Patna. The police had to resort to lathi-charge to quell the protests at Dak Bungalow chowk.