Mr. Lokesh said the notification held up because the department had first studied why earlier recruitment notifications had drawn stays. Officials including Vijayarama Raju, then Commissioner of School Education and now CRDA Commissioner, worked on that exercise, and the reasons were analysed using an AI engine before a model notification was drawn up to avoid the same flaws.

He said he had told the department he would act seriously if the notification failed at any stage of legal scrutiny. The coalition government completed the recruitment, issued offer letters, trained the selected teachers and posted them in schools, he said, calling it an achievement of the people’s government.