Apex court raps Delhi for not filling teachers' posts

New Delhi, March 9 : The Delhi Government had to contend with the Supreme Court's rap Tuesday for its failure to fill up over 200 vacant posts of government school teachers and principals for the last two years when free education for students up to 14 years has been made a fundamental right.

A bench of Justice Dalveer Bhandari and Justice K.S. Radhakrishnan also asked the Delhi chief secretary to find out how the government has failed to fill up the vacancies for the past two and a half years.

The bench sought the chief secretary's report within four weeks and asked him to initiate action against the officials responsible for letting the posts remain vacant.

"It is astonishing that on the one hand, Article 21 talks of free and compulsory education as a fundamental right and on the other hand there is an infraction of the fundamental right when posts of 2007 have not been filled up till date because of the total insensitivity of the district education officer," the bench said in an order.

The apex court's snub came after an affidavit of the Union Public Service Commission stated that though the Delhi government had approached it for filling up the posts in July 2007, it had not pursued the matter.