Telangana HC Orders Government to Fill 1,800 Vacant Teacher Posts

Hyderabad: Justice Namavarapu Rajeshwar Rao of the Telangana High Court disposed of a batch of writ pleas challenging the failure of authorities to fill fallout vacancies in recruitment to various teaching and non-teaching posts in residential educational institutions. The judge dealt with writ pleas filed by P. Thikkaiah and others. The petitioners contended that despite qualifying in the computer-based tests conducted in August 2023, they were denied appointment as the authorities failed to operate the merit list downwards after several candidates were selected for multiple posts and joined only one, leaving nearly 1,800 vacancies unfilled.

The petitioners argued that carrying such vacancies forward to the next recruitment notification was contrary to Supreme Court judgments. The Telangana Residential Educational Institutions Recruitment Board (TREI-RB) maintained that under the government order of February 1997, there was no provision for a waiting list and that fallout vacancies should be carried forward to the next recruitment year. They submitted that appointment orders had been issued to candidates who joined, and the remaining vacancies were to be notified in the next cycle. The judge held that in cases involving multiple notifications for different posts, unfilled vacancies cannot be carried forward but must be filled by operating the merit list downwards. The judge directed the authorities to fill all fallout vacancies arising under notifications within six months from receipt of a copy of the order.

2. HC restores Bahadurpet land to protected tenants

Justice K. Sujana of the Telangana High Court set aside the orders of the Nalgonda joint collector passed in 1994 and restored agricultural land in Bahadurpet to protected tenants, ruling that their tenancy rights were never validly surrendered. The judge was dealing with a batch of civil revision petitions filed by Madani Innaiah and six others, holders of ownership certificates, who accused the unofficial respondents of illegally occupying their land in 1975 in collusion with the village patwari. The tahsildar, after inquiry, ordered restoration of possession in 1983. The Nalgonda joint collector overturned these orders in 1994. The judge held that there was no evidence of satisfaction recorded by the tahsildar regarding the alleged relinquishment of tenancy rights, a mandatory requirement under the Telangana Tenancy and Agricultural Lands Act, 1950. The matter reached the Supreme Court, which remanded it in 2003 for a finding on the tahsildar’s satisfaction. On examining the records, the judge noted that only one tenant had filed a surrender petition and even that was invalid as it was submitted after the statutory deadline and lacked the tahsildar’s approval. Observing that the landlord could not sell protected tenancy land to third parties without a valid surrender, the judge allowed the revision petitions and reinstated the Tahsildar’s 1983 orders.

3. Long-time daily wager entitled to regularisation: HC

Justice Nagesh Bheemapaka of the Telangana High Court set aside two government memos that denied regularisation to a long-serving daily-wage employee of the State Board of Technical Education and Training (SBTET). The judge was dealing with a writ plea filed by Cherukupalli Aruna Prasad, who was appointed in 1987 as a junior assistant/typist on daily wages. Despite serving for over a decade with intermittent breaks, his services were never regularised. The petitioner argued that the memos were contrary to earlier court directions, which required the government to consider long-serving daily wagers for regularisation under government order. The judge observed that the name of the petitioner figured in the 1993 seniority list, proving his service as on the crucial cut-off date. The judge held that artificial breaks in service could not defeat his claim and found that the authorities had indulged in “discriminatory” treatment by regularizing others while denying him the same benefit. Setting aside the impugned memos, the judge directed the authorities to regularize and absorb the petitioner from the date of his initial appointment, taking into account his full length of service, and to grant him all consequential benefits.

4. HC quashes cheating case as dispute was of civil nature

Justice Sreenivas Rao of the Telangana High Court declared that in order to constitute the offence of cheating under Section 420 IPC, there must be fraudulent or dishonest intention at the very inception of the transaction. The judge quashed a criminal case filed against Polasa Ravi Kumar of Sainikpuri in a case of cheating. It was the case of the complainant that the accused borrowed over `12 lakh and agreed to pay back the amount with an agreement to pay two per cent monthly interest. The accused initially paid interest but failed to repay the principal amount. Cheques given by him were never encashed. Dealing with the facts of the case, Justice Sreenivas Rao declared that there is no specific allegation against the petitioner that he borrowed the amounts from the respondents with a dishonest intention and committed cheating. The Judge also pointed out, after examining the present case in light of the settled principles of law, that both the complaint and the civil suit arise from the very same set of allegations, namely, payment of money said to be due by the petitioner to the respondent, and that the dispute is essentially civil in nature. The reference of the case on the file of the 1st Additional Metropolitan Magistrate was quashed, stating that its continuation would amount to an abuse of the process of law.