<span style="color: #222222;">In a major relief to thousands of 'siksha mitras' who appeared for the Assistant Teacher Recruitment Exam 2019, the Lucknow bench of Allahabad High court on Friday quashed a government notification fixing 65 and 60 per cent as qualifying marks for general and reserved category candidates respectively.</span><br />'' <br />''<span style="color: #222222;">The order paves the way for the selection of more 'siksha mitras' due to a 2017 Supreme Court direction, asking to give them 25 per cent weightage in the next two consecutive selection processes.</span><br />'' <br />'' <span style="color: #222222;">Passing the order, the court directed the Examination Regulatory Authority (ERA) secretary to declare the result of the 2019 exam in terms of the Government Order of 1st of December 2018 and an advertisement of 5th of December 2018. </span><br />'' <br />'' <span style="color: #222222;"> In the examination last year, the minimum qualifying marks were fixed as 45 and 40 per cent for general and reserved category candidates respectively. Subsequently, the criteria was lowered to 33 and 30 per cent respectively.</span><br />'' <br />''<span style="color: #222222;">Allowing dozens of writ petitions by 'siksha mitras', a bench of Justice Rajesh Singh Chauhan directed the authorities concerned to comply with the order soon, preferably within a period of three months. </span><br />'' <br />''<span style="color: #222222;">The petitioners had pleaded that fixing the minimum qualifying marks as 65 and 60 per cent after the written examination was unwarranted and arbitrary and it could not sustain. </span><br />'' <br />'' <span style="color: #222222;">Besides, 1.40 lakh candidates had appeared in the 2018 examination and this time 4.10 lakh appeared. </span><br />