Srinagar, Feb 19: The J&K government on Thursday said that systematic, legal and practical constraints delayed the regularisation of lecturers in the School Education Department (SED).
This was stated in a written reply of the Minister for Education to a question raised by MLA Kuldeep Raj Dubey.
MLA Dubey had sought subject-wise details of the masters promoted as lecturers in SED since 2023, besides the details of lecturers awaiting regularisation.
The minister for education, Sakina Itoo, in a written reply, said that the delay in regularisation of lecturers was neither intentional nor due to administrative inaction, but occurred on account of practical, legal and systemic constraints, “which were beyond the immediate control of the department.”
“The School Education Department was facing a huge backlog of in-charge officers pending regularisation since 2013 onwards. The number of such cases ran into several thousand across different cadres and disciplines, making immediate clearance practically difficult,” the reply reads.
The department however, informed the House that 270 PG masters were placed as lecturers of Mathematics besides Botany (4) and Zoology (1) in 2023.
In 2024, SED has placed 4 PG masters as lecturers, including Chemistry (3) and Botany (1) while 53 PG masters, including Mathematics (1), Chemistry (4) and Geography (48) were placed as lecturers.
Similarly 81 PG masters were placed as lecturers in 2026 which include Political Science (74) and Dogri (7).
The written reply however reads that the matter about the delay and backlog of in-charge officers was, accordingly, placed before the then State Administrative Council and pursuant to SAC Decision No. 166/22/2018 dated December 7 of, which granted a one-time exemption for regularization without reference to DPC/JKPSC, the Department initiated the regularization process in a phased and systematic manner.
“The implementation of the decision required detailed verification of service records, including APRs, posting history, vigilance status and Work & Conduct /Integrity Certificates,” it reads.
The reply reads that in many old cases, records were incomplete or scattered across offices, resulting in unavoidable procedural delays.
“In addition, the department started receiving representations from lecturers, in huge numbers claiming that their names had been dropped from placements despite being senior to the officers/officials placed in higher grades,” it reads.
The government said the implementation of the SAC decision was seriously affected by judicial intervention, as the High Court, in SWP No. 3186/2019 (Abdul Qayoom Dar vs State & Others), stayed the filling up of lecturer posts by promotion on October 31 of 2019.
“The matter remained sub-judice for nearly two years, and during the said period, no promotions or regularisations at the Lecturer level could be effected,” it reads.
The government said that during the intervening period, a significant number of officers awaiting regularisation had retired or expired, necessitating the retrieval and verification of old records from multiple offices, which was a time-consuming exercise.
“Despite these constraints, the department made continuous and sincere efforts and conducted multiple DPC meetings after removal of legal and procedural hurdles, resulting in large-scale regularisations,” the reply reads.
