Uttarakhand HC Moves Toward Contempt After Officials Suppressed Office Memorandum Offering Ineligible Appointments
The Uttarakhand High Court has directed official respondents to respond within three days to a contempt application after finding that a key office memorandum was deliberately withheld from the court.
Justice Rakesh Thapliyal, sitting singly at the High Court of Uttarakhand at Nainital, on 18 May 2026 directed the official respondents — the Secretary and the Director of the concerned department — to file their response within three days to an application moved by the petitioners under Article 215 of the Constitution of India seeking initiation of contempt proceedings. The application arose from non-compliance of the court's order dated 16 December 2025. The court found that an office memorandum dated 16 February 2026, by which the then Director had offered appointments to 19 candidates, was deliberately suppressed from the court across multiple hearings held on 18 February, 24 February, 16 March, and 24 March 2026. The matter has a long procedural history rooted in a Division Bench judgment of 29 May 2018 holding that CTET-qualified candidates were not eligible for appointment as Assistant Teachers in primary schools run by the State Government of Uttarakhand.
The Dispute Before the Court
The two writ petitions — Writ Petition (SS) No. 2292 of 2018 filed by Vinay Kumar and others, and Writ Petition (SS) No. 172 of 2019 filed by Laxman Singh Samant and another — challenge appointments made to the post of Assistant Teacher in primary institutions run by the State Government of Uttarakhand pursuant to an advertisement dated 17 February 2016.
The petitioners' case, argued by Mr. V.B.S. Negi, senior counsel assisted by Ms. Azmeen Wason, is that the private respondents who were appointed held CTET certificates, not the State TET (UTET) certificate. The petitioners, by contrast, held B.Ed. degrees with TET qualification and were admittedly eligible under the applicable rules. Despite their eligibility, appointments were offered to CTET-qualified candidates instead.
The private respondents were represented by Mr. A.S. Rawat, senior counsel, and Mr. Shashank Upadhyaya. The State was represented by Mr. Rajeev Singh Bisht, Deputy Advocate General, with Mr. Pradeep Hairiya as Standing Counsel. Mr. Yogesh Pacholia appeared for NCTE.
The CTET Versus TET Eligibility Question
The central legal question is whether candidates holding CTET — the Teacher Eligibility Test conducted by the Central Government through CBSE — were eligible for appointment as Assistant Teachers in primary schools run by the State Government of Uttarakhand.
The Division Bench, in its judgment dated 29 May 2018 in Special Appeal No. 307 of 2016 and connected matters, had answered this question in the negative. Paragraphs 35 to 37 of that judgment, extensively reproduced in the present order, record that the NCTE notifications of 17 October 2012 and 12 August 2014 — issued under Section 23(2) of the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009 — granted relaxation to B.Ed. holders to appear in the TET conducted by the State Government, not the CTET conducted by the Central Government. The Division Bench held that this relaxation did not extend to the CTET.
The NCTE notification dated 12 August 2014 extended the deadline for appointing B.Ed. and TET-I certified candidates to vacant posts of Assistant Teacher (Primary) up to 31 March 2016, subject to the condition that the State Government of Uttarakhand would conduct the Teacher Eligibility Test. The Division Bench found that since Uttarakhand was conducting its own TET, there was no basis to invoke the clause permitting consideration of CTET in place of State TET.
Clause 10 of the NCTE guidelines dated 11 February 2011 draws a clear line: TET conducted by the Central Government applies to schools established, owned, or controlled by the Central Government; TET conducted by a State Government applies to schools of that State Government and local authorities. The Division Bench read Sections 2(a)(i) and 2(n)(i) of the RTE Act alongside these guidelines to conclude that CTET holders were eligible only for Central Government school appointments, not State Government primary school appointments.
The Uttarakhand Government Elementary Education (Teacher) Service Rules 2012, as amended in 2016, were also examined. Mr. Negi argued, and the court accepted in its prior orders, that the 2016 amendment made clear that only TET-qualified candidates — meaning those who passed the State-conducted TET — were eligible. The advertisement dated 17 February 2016 was found to have included a clause permitting CTET-qualified candidates, which the court found to be contrary to the statutory rules and the NCTE notification.
The State's position, advanced through successive affidavits by the Secretary, was that UTET-1 and CTET-1 are considered equivalent in Uttarakhand. The court repeatedly asked for a notification or rule establishing this equivalence. None was produced. On 12 December 2024, the court found the Secretary's additional affidavit unsatisfactory on this point. On 27 March 2025, the Additional Chief Standing Counsel submitted that a Committee headed by the Chief Secretary had taken a decision that CTET is equivalent to TET — but this was a post-facto administrative decision, not a pre-existing notification.
A Pattern of Evasion by Officials
The order of 18 May 2026 is notable for the court's detailed account of how official respondents conducted themselves across hearings spanning more than a year after the Division Bench remand.
On 3 December 2024, the court found that the Secretary's compliance affidavit avoided answering why candidates without TET qualification, though holding B.Ed. up to 31 March 2016, were given appointments when TET-qualified candidates were available. The Secretary was directed to file an additional affidavit within three days. The additional affidavit was also found unsatisfactory.
On 18 December 2024, the Secretary and Director joined proceedings through video conference and submitted that CTET-trained candidates were eligible under the Uttarakhand State (Primary Teacher) Service Rules, 2000, and that the Division Bench judgment was prospective and therefore did not affect the selection in question. The court gave further opportunity to address the Division Bench's findings in paragraphs 31 to 37 of the 2018 judgment.
On 2 January 2025, taking a liberal view given that the private respondents had been working since 2018 and were large in number, the court directed the State to examine whether vacancies were available so that the petitioners' candidature could also be considered. This was done to avoid ousting the private respondents from employment while still protecting the petitioners' rights.
On 8 January 2025, the Director was asked to explain why the advertisement dated 17 February 2016 included a clause permitting CTET-qualified candidates despite the NCTE notification of 12 August 2014, and why the advertisement was contrary to the Uttarakhand Government Elementary Education (Teacher) (Amended) Service Rules 2016 notified on 16 January 2018.
On 17 February 2025, the State was directed to furnish details of all officials during whose tenure the appointments were given to the private respondents. This direction remained uncomplied with as of 18 May 2026.
On 19 February 2025, the court observed prima facie that the advertisement itself was in complete violation of the statutory rules and the NCTE notification, rendering the entire selection bad in law. The Chief Secretary was asked to address the issue.
On 30 April 2025, the Chief Secretary joined through video conference but had not read the Division Bench judgment. The matter was adjourned.
The Suppressed Office Memorandum
The most serious finding in the 18 May 2026 order concerns an office memorandum dated 16 February 2026. On 8 April 2026, Mr. Negi placed this document before the court. It had been issued by the then Director, directing officials in the districts of Chamoli, Tehri, Rudraprayag, Bageshwar, Almora, and Pithoragarh to offer appointments to 19 candidates.
The court noted that this memorandum was issued at the verge of the then Director's retirement. The Director was directed to file a personal affidavit. In his affidavit, the Director stated that he issued the memorandum on the instructions of the Government. The State counsel, Mr. Ganesh Kandpal, denied that any such instructions were given and argued that if there was a hurdle, the Director should have sought clarification.
Subsequently, the court was informed that all 19 appointments made pursuant to the memorandum had been cancelled.
The court's concern was not the appointments themselves but the suppression. The memorandum was dated 16 February 2026. Hearings were held on 18 February, 24 February, 16 March, and 24 March 2026. At none of these hearings did the Secretary or the Director inform the court of the memorandum's existence. The court found that the memorandum was deliberately suppressed with the intention of misleading the court.
The Order of 16 December 2025 and Its Non-Compliance
The contempt application is specifically directed at non-compliance of the court's order dated 16 December 2025. By that order, the court had directed that the candidature of the petitioners be considered against 11 vacancies arising in the recruitment year 2025–26. The court explained in the 18 May 2026 order that this direction was passed as an ad interim mandamus because the petitioners had been deprived of appointment pursuant to the 2016 advertisement, and because a large number of private respondents who were working since 2018 could not be ousted.
The State had relied upon a judgment of the Supreme Court in the case of Devesh Sharma to resist compliance. The court noted the contradiction: if the State was relying on that judgment to resist the petitioners' appointment, it was inconsistent for the then Director to have issued the office memorandum of 16 February 2026 offering appointments to 19 other candidates, since that judgment would equally come in their way.
No appeal was filed against the order dated 16 December 2025 under Chapter VIII Rule V of the High Court Rules. No application was moved to recall or modify it. The court held that in these circumstances, the official respondents were bound to comply.
On 24 March 2026, a further opportunity was given to comply with the 16 December 2025 order, and the personal appearance of officials was exempted. Compliance was still not forthcoming.
The Coordinate Bench Judgment Plea Rejected
On 18 May 2026, the Deputy Advocate General, Mr. Rajeev Singh Bisht, submitted that an identical issue had been dealt with by a Coordinate Bench in its judgment dated 22 December 2023 in WPSS No. 2242 of 2019. The court rejected this submission after examining the judgment. The Coordinate Bench had dismissed that petition on the ground that the certificates of the private respondents were not challenged within a reasonable time and that there was no allegation that the relevant recruitment rules were not followed or that the private respondents were ineligible. The court found that none of these features applied to the present petitions, where the Division Bench had specifically remanded the matter for fresh decision and where the core allegation was precisely that the private respondents were ineligible.
The court observed that the Deputy Advocate General had placed reliance on the Coordinate Bench judgment without reading the record of the present petition, the reliefs sought, or the Division Bench order of remand.
Order
Justice Rakesh Thapliyal directed the official respondents to file their response to the contempt application moved under Article 215 of the Constitution of India within three days. The court warned that if the response was not filed within that period, all the respondents would be required to remain present in court.
The matter was listed on top of the board for 21 May 2026.