Candidates excluded from the prepared select panel cannot claim appointment under the closed ReT Scheme.

Pursuant to Government Order No. 597-Edu. of 2003 and Advertisement Notification No. CEOP/SSA/545-566 dated 18.04.2009, applications were invited for engagement as Rehbar-e-Taleem Teaching Guides for the newly upgraded Government Middle School, Katyari.

The petitioner claimed to be a permanent resident of Village Qazi Mohra Gundi, Panchayat Halqa Banwat, and asserted that his application, received on 08.05.2009, was wrongly excluded from consideration.

The official respondents stated that the petitioner had submitted only an “Under Process” Permanent Resident Certificate, failed to produce a valid certificate within time, and was otherwise shown by various official records to be residing within Poonch Municipality.

Respondent No. 6, Sanjeev Kumar, was placed first in the relevant merit panel on the basis of his B.Sc. and B.Ed. qualifications and was engaged against the post.

The petitioner challenged respondent No. 6’s selection on the ground that he did not belong to the concerned village and sought his own engagement.

During the pendency of the petition, respondent No. 6 resigned after securing appointment as a regular Teacher, resulting in a subsequent vacancy.

The Supreme Court thereafter decided Union Territory of Jammu & Kashmir v. Saba Wani , 2026 INSC 439, concerning the closure and limited consequential operation of the Rehbar-e-Taleem Scheme.

1. Whether the petitioner was entitled to have the selection and engagement of respondent No. 6 quashed on the ground of alleged ineligibility or non-residence in the concerned village?

2. Whether the petitioner, who was not included in the prepared select panel, could claim a consequential direction for his engagement under the erstwhile Rehbar-e-Taleem Scheme?

3. Whether the subsequent vacancy caused by respondent No. 6’s resignation could be filled in favour of the petitioner on the basis of the original selection process?

The Court applied the principles governing judicial review under Article 226 of the Constitution, including the rule that a candidate cannot ordinarily claim appointment merely by challenging another candidate’s selection, particularly when the claimant himself was not included in the select panel.

It relied principally on the Supreme Court’s directions in Union Territory of Jammu & Kashmir & Ors. v. Saba Wani , 2026 INSC 439, under Article 142, which protected candidates already placed in prepared Rehbar-e-Taleem select panels from the retrospective effect of the Scheme’s closure, but expressly excluded candidates who were not part of a prepared select panel and clarified that the directions could not be construed as reviving the Scheme or creating a fresh right of appointment.

The Court also applied the principle that an interim order preserves the position during litigation and does not create a substantive or vested right to appointment.

The Rehbar-e-Taleem framework, including village-, Panchayat- and zone-level consideration, was treated as governing the original selection process.

The Court held that, irrespective of the disputed controversy concerning the petitioner’s and respondent No. 6’s residential status, the decisive fact was that the petitioner never formed part of the prepared select panel, whereas respondent No. 6 was included in the panel and was subsequently engaged.

Consequently, even if respondent No. 6’s eligibility were found defective, quashing his engagement could not automatically confer a right of appointment upon the petitioner; doing so would require reopening the selection and creating a fresh right in favour of a non-panel candidate.

Such relief was barred by the controlling directions in Saba Wani , which preserved rights only of candidates included in prepared select panels and prohibited revival of the closed Rehbar-e-Taleem Scheme for persons outside those panels.

Further, the vacancy arose only after respondent No. 6 resigned, and therefore did not establish any entitlement in the petitioner under the original selection process.

It held that the petitioner, not being a member of the prepared select panel, had no enforceable right to engagement under the erstwhile Rehbar-e-Taleem Scheme, nor could he claim appointment against the subsequent vacancy caused by respondent No. 6’s resignation.

The writ petition and all connected applications were accordingly dismissed; any interim direction was vacated.