Supreme Court Seeks Union's Affidavit On TET Requirement For Special Educators To Secondary Classes

The Supreme Court today asked the Union of India to file an affidavit on the requirement for a special educator to qualify the Teachers' Eligibility Test (TET) in order to teach students of secondary classes (Classes 9 to 12).

The Court further called on all States/Union Territories to ensure compliance within 1 month of its earlier directions regarding pay parity and service conditions of contractual teachers.

A bench of Justices Dipankar Datta and K Vinod Chandran passed the order, after hearing Additional Solicitor General Aishwarya Bhati, Amicus Curiae-Rishi Malhotra and Senior Advocates Ramkrishna Viraraghavan and Manish Singhvi.

The Court called for the Union's affidavit on the following aspects:

- That a special educator seeking appointment to teach students of classes 9 to 12 (secondary stage) are required to qualify TET;

- That the note under recruitment process in communication dated 10 June 2022 is applicable to all stages – foundation, preparatory, [middle] and secondary;

- Whether the Centre or any State government has conducted any TET examination since 2010 for secondary schools?

Notably, ASG Bhati, on a specific Court query, submitted that TET is mandatory for all teachers (that is, even for secondary classes). Additional requirement is RCI (Rehabilitation Council of India) certification, she said.

In this regard, Justice Datta took note of an order passed by a 3-judge bench of the Court in 2021, where the 'Guidelines for Appointment of Special Educators' (part of Samagra Shiksha Scheme) were mentioned, which stipulated TET as a requirement for classes 1-5 and 6-8, but not for 9-12. "If that be so, how can you now say that it is necessary for 9, 10 also? Where do we get that? When there is specific mention of 1-5 and 6-8, that necessarily means 9 and 10 are excluded", the judge remarked.

In response, the ASG referred to the communication dated 10 June 2022 made by the Union Ministry of Education, laying down the norms and standards of pupil – teacher ratio for special schools as well as modalities for recruitment of special education teachers. Under a heading “recruitment process”, CTET/TET/NTA score plus demonstration of “Class” was mentioned. Placing reliance on this, it was earlier contended that TET is required for every Special Educator seeking to impart lessons to students of classes 9 to 12.

Justice Datta however questioned the manner in which the requirements were sought to be laid down. "Not in this fashion. Not by a communication. Either you include it in the statute or by rule-making power you do it...one officer will come and give his own opinion, what is the [...] of this? Does it not run contrary to what the guidelines are, which are extracted in the judgment of Justice Khanwilkar?" the judge said.

At last, the ASG sought time to obtain instructions on the guidelines.

With regard to eligibility requirement of TET for special educators to classes 9-12, the Amicus also raised an apprehension regarding the position of contractual teachers who are at the fag end of their career. He suggested an interpretation of the guidelines recorded in the Court's 2022 judgment, pointing out that the word "educator" was used in points (1) and (2) (that is, relating to classes 1-5 and 6-8) but not for (3) (that is, relating to classes 9-12). Therefore, once a person became an educator, only qualifications such as in single disability area were required, he said.

Insofar as Senior Advocate Viraraghavan, for intervenors, submitted that no state has complied with the Court's earlier directions (passed in 2022) over pay parity and service conditions of contractual teachers, the bench ordered, "we require each of the state governments to file affidavits and plead compliance of the aforesaid directions contained in the order dated 21 July 2022 within a month".

The bench also noted that the 2022 directions were reiterated by the Court in an order of March, 2025.

Case Title: RAJNEESH KUMAR PANDEY AND ORS. Versus UNION OF INDIA AND ORS., W.P.(C) No. 132/2016