Declaring the Peshawar High Court’s (PHC) verdict in the case of recruitment of primary schoolteachers (PSTs) null and void, the Supreme Court (SC) on Saturday ruled that securing 40 percent marks in the NTS test was mandatory for becoming eligible for recruitment.
In the decision, authored by Justice Shakeel Ahmad, the judge rejected the applications filed by the candidates failing to pass the test for recruitment.
The judge also said that the losing candidates did not have the legal right to challenge recruitment policy in courts, and that once the candidates applied for recruitment, they could not question the criterion set for eligibility.
It was further written in the decision that the Education Department’s 2017 policy was legal, and that courts did not interfere in policymaking.
The judge wrote that the PHC’s observation that the directions given by the provincial education minister did not have any legal status was wrong. “Under the rules of business, the provincial minister has the authority to determine the criterion for induction,” the judge added.
Making an observation about the verdict given by a trial court in the case, the decision said that the court, by ordering that names of the losing candidates should also be included in the merit list, made a wrong interpretation of the law.
“Lower courts, instead of relying on the 2017 policy, relied on the 2014 policy, which had been rejected.
The losing candidates had prayed to the apex court that their names too be included in the merit list.
