New Delhi, Aug 29 (PTI) The Delhi High Court today asked the city government to consider relaxing age norms of candidates while recruiting special educators in over 1700 MCD schools.
A bench of justices S Ravindra Bhat and Vipin Sanghi directed that the Chief Secretary hold within a week a meeting with officials of municipal corporations and arrive at a decision within three weeks, while observing that the issue of inadequate number of special educators in schools cannot be addressed till age relaxation is granted.
The court passed the order while disposing of the plea of eight special educators who were rejected for the post of Special Educator (Primary) in various MCD schools on account of being over-aged.
The plea, filed through advocate Ashok Aggarwal, also challenged the May 28 order of the Central Administrative Tribunal which had directed Delhi government to consider the representations of the petitioners and pass appropriate reasoned and speaking order thereon, within four weeks.
Aggarwal told the court "there is non-availability of candidates eligible in terms of the prescribed age-limit of 30 years for the posts of Special Educator (Primary)" and added that as a result "large number of posts are lying vacant, leading to violation of the right to education of lakhs of disabled children".
He also submitted that the posts had been created pursuant to the September 16, 2009 order of a division bench of the high court directing recruitment of at least two special educators in each school.
"But even after a lapse of five years, no recruitments have taken place," he said, adding "In the recruitment process initiated in 2012 against 1610 vacancies of special educators in the MCD, only 47 eligible candidates could be found. A fresh process has been started in 2014 for filling up 1692 vacancies, but the position with respect to unavailability of candidates eligible in terms of age remains unchanged."
