On Friday, Justice Muzaffar Hussain Attar heard a petition that challenged the appointment of Mohammad Imran Khan as Rehbar-e-Taleem (education guide) teacher in a school in south Kashmir.

The petitioner had questioned the validity of Khan’s certificates on which he was appointed as a teacher. According to the petitioner, Khan’s certificates issued by Board of Higher Secondary Education Delhi and Global Open University, Nagaland were not recognised. The marksheet issued to the respondent by the Board of Higher Secondary Education Delhi showed he had secured 74 per cent, 73 per cent and 66 per cent in Urdu, English and Maths respectively.

However, during the proceedings , when court asked a senior counsel to give a simple line for translation from English to Urdu and vice-versa to Khan, the teacher failed.

After translation, the teacher was then asked to write an essay on ‘the cow’ in Urdu, but he failed again. Reports say, Khan sought permission to write the essay outside the courtroom, which was granted but he failed again.

But the climax of the unfolding drama reached its pinnacle only when Khan, who told the court that he had better hold on Mathematics, was asked to solve a fourth grade maths problem.

As he failed yet again, a visually perturbed Justice Attar said, “In this situation, what would be the fate of the state has to be only visualised. The school going children… would pass out as blockheads.”

“The authorities, responsible to ensure that the stream of academics and education is not polluted in the state of J&K;, however, in view of the facts, which have surfaced in this case, have acted as soulless bodies with ray-less eyes, as they have criminally condoned and overlooked the Himalayan blunders committed in procuring the academic degrees,” the court observed.