Petitioner Outside Select Panel Cannot Revive Closed RET Scheme, Rules J&K High Court

The Jammu & Kashmir High Court dismissed a challenge to an RET teacher’s engagement, holding that the Supreme Court’s Saba Wani judgment bars reopening concluded selections under the closed Rehbar-e-Taleem Scheme for candidates not part of a prepared select panel.

Justice Wasim Sadiq Nargal, sitting singly at the Jammu bench of the High Court of Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh, dismissed a writ petition filed by Kavita Devi, a resident of Village Thangriot, Tehsil Sunderbani, District Rajouri, who had sought to quash the engagement of a private respondent as a Rehbar-e-Taleem (RET) teacher and to secure the post for herself. The petition, filed in 2016, was rendered infructuous by the intervening judgment of the Supreme Court in Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir & Ors. v. Saba Wani, 2026 INSC 439. The High Court held that granting the relief sought would amount to reviving the RET Scheme — expressly prohibited by Saba Wani — and to creating a fresh appointment right for a candidate who was not part of any prepared select panel.

The Dispute Before the High Court

The factual matrix stretched back to 2004. An advertisement notice issued by the Director School Education, Jammu, vide Order No. DSEJ/RET/4811-17 dated 29 June 2004, invited applications for RET Teacher posts, including at Upper Primary Middle School Thangriot, Zone Lower Hathal, Tehsil Sunderbani, District Rajouri. The notice prescribed 15 days for submission of applications, placing the deadline at 14 July 2004.

Kavita Devi applied within time. A village panel was subsequently prepared in which she was placed at Serial No. 3, above the private respondent Amit Kumar, who appeared at Serial No. 4. The merit list finalised on 30 April 2005 maintained her position at Serial No. 3, against three available posts. On the face of the record, she was within the zone of engagement.

The petitioner alleged that respondents Nos. 3 and 4 — the Chief Education Officer, Rajouri, and the Zonal Education Officer, Lower Hathal — entertained an application purportedly filed by Amit Kumar on 23 September 2004, well after the prescribed deadline. Respondent No. 3 allegedly endorsed that application and directed respondent No. 4 to consider it. A verification of Amit Kumar’s marks was subsequently obtained from the Joint Secretary (Certificates) in May 2005, reflecting 292 marks in the Bi-annual Examination, 2003. The petitioner questioned why these marks were neither disclosed nor relied upon when applications were originally invited in 2004.

Amit Kumar was engaged as RET Teacher vide order dated 3 August 2005. Despite representations, Kavita Devi’s grievance went unaddressed. She sought information under the RTI Act through applications in October 2013, January 2014, and May 2016, but received incomplete and illegible information. Respondent No. 4 itself admitted in a letter dated 7 November 2015 that incomplete information had been supplied. A second appeal before the Chief Information Commissioner and a complaint to the State Vigilance Organisation both yielded no effective action.

In the writ petition, Kavita Devi sought five reliefs: quashing of Amit Kumar’s engagement order; a direction to consider her own claim for the RET post; a direction to the Chief Information Commissioner to supply RTI information and impose penalties; a direction to the State Vigilance Organisation to conduct an inquiry into alleged criminal conspiracy and gratification among officials; and a direction to the State Board of School Education to produce original mark records relating to Amit Kumar’s 2003 examinations.

How the Intervening Supreme Court Judgment Changed the Landscape

While the writ petition was pending, the Supreme Court pronounced judgment in Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir & Ors. v. Saba Wani, 2026 INSC 439. That case arose from a challenge brought by the Union Territory of J&K and addressed the consequences of the Closure Order dated 16 November 2018, by which the RET Scheme had been cancelled.

The Supreme Court issued wide-ranging directions in paragraph 25 of Saba Wani. The directions preserved the rights of candidates “placed in the select panel” and required the State to issue formal engagement orders to them within eight weeks. Appointees were required to acquire minimum qualifications prescribed under NCTE Regulations, including qualifying the TET, within three years and three attempts from the date of engagement. Upon doing so, their services were to be regularised after two years of service. Seniority was to be redrawn by the competent authority, maintaining positions in the select panels uninfluenced by date of appointment or joining.

Critically for the present case, the Supreme Court inserted a clear rider in Clause (i) of paragraph 25: the judgment “shall not be construed as reviving the ReT Scheme for any purpose whatsoever, nor shall it be interpreted so as to create or confer any right upon candidates who were not part of a prepared select panel or who failed to approach the Court timely.” The directions were further described as issued in the peculiar facts and circumstances of the case under Article 142 of the Constitution of India and expressly stated not to be treated as precedent.

The High Court’s Reasoning

Justice Nargal began the legal analysis by identifying the precise nature of the relief the petitioner sought. The petition was not simply a challenge to the legality of Amit Kumar’s engagement in the abstract. It was a claim that, upon quashing that engagement, the Court should direct consideration of the petitioner’s own appointment in his place. The two reliefs were interdependent.

The Court held that even if the petitioner were to establish some infirmity in the selection process, that finding alone could not result in a direction for her appointment at this stage. Granting such relief would require the Court to reopen the selection process conducted under the erstwhile RET Scheme and unsettle a selection concluded years ago. The central obstacle was that Kavita Devi did not form part of any prepared select panel from which an operative right of engagement could be recognised under Saba Wani.

The Court was specific about what the petitioner was actually claiming. Her assertion that she was placed at Serial No. 3 in an earlier village or merit panel was not, in the Court’s view, the same as being part of a “prepared select panel” within the meaning of Saba Wani. Her right of engagement was not an existing and operative right arising from such a panel; it would have to be freshly constructed by the Court examining the legality of Amit Kumar’s engagement and then directing her substitution. That exercise, the Court held, would travel beyond the limited protection extended by the Supreme Court and would amount to reviving the closed RET Scheme.

The High Court applied Clause (i) of paragraph 25 of Saba Wani directly: since the petitioner was admittedly not figuring in the select panel, any appointment direction in her favour would conflict with the Supreme Court’s express clarification. The petition was accordingly rendered infructuous by the subsequent development in law.

Outcome

Justice Wasim Sadiq Nargal dismissed SWP No. 2533/2016 on 1 September 2026. The Court recorded that the petition did not survive for consideration and that granting the relief of engagement would amount to reviving the RET Scheme in direct conflict with the directions of the Supreme Court in Saba Wani. All pending applications, including IA No. 1/2016 and CM No. 6850/2019, were disposed of. Interim directions, if any, were vacated.