'EWS Quota Should Have Applied to 69,000 Teacher Posts, But No Relief Possible Now': Allahabad High Court

'The Allahabad High Court has observed that reservation for Economically Weaker Sections (EWS) should have been implemented in the recruitment of 69,000 Assistant Teachers in Uttar Pradesh. However, citing the practical impossibility of dislodging already appointed candidates, the court declined to grant any relief to the petitioners.

"The implementation of such reservation would require 10% of candidates belonging to unreserved category to be ousted so as to accommodate these persons. The selected persons are already working for the last several years and their appointment is not under challenge. In such circumstances, it would not be prudent exercise of discretion for this Court to issue any direction to extend 10% EWS reservation in the recruitment in question, at this stage, as implementation of such direction would be a mere impossibility," held the division bench comprising Justices Ashwani Kumar Mishra and Praveen Kumar Giri in the judgment delivered on May 8, 2025.

The judgment was passed in a batch of special appeals filed by unsuccessful aspirants, including Shivam Pandey and others. These appeals challenged a February 2024 single-judge decision that had upheld the denial of EWS reservation in the recruitment process.

The controversy stemmed from a major teacher recruitment drive in UP, where the Assistant Teacher Recruitment Examination (ATRE) was conducted on January 6, 2019, and the appointment process was formally initiated through an advertisement dated May 17, 2020. The petitioners contended that since the EWS quota was introduced via a state government order on February 18, 2019—prior to the recruitment advertisement—it ought to have been implemented.

Agreeing with the petitioners, the division bench noted that the EWS quota was validly introduced through executive instructions in February 2019 and later supported by a retrospective statute (UP Act No. 10 of 2020). It further ruled that recruitment officially commenced with the advertisement in May 2020—not with the 2018 examination guidelines as the state claimed. Therefore, EWS candidates were indeed entitled to reservation in this round of appointments.

Despite this, court declined to issue any remedial directions. All 69,000 advertised posts had already been filled, and none of the selected candidates were impleaded in the case.

The bench also observed that many petitioners may not even have been eligible for appointment due to their educational qualifications, referencing recent Supreme Court rulings on the validity of B.Ed. degrees for such posts.

It further emphasized that undoing existing appointments without the affected parties being heard would violate due process.

Accordingly, court dismissed all special appeals but overruled the single judge’s finding on the date of EWS implementation.

Case Title: Shivam Pandey and 5 Others vs. State and 2 Others with connected matters

Download judgment here