The Jammu and Kashmir High Court made a teacher write an essay on cow and solve a class IV maths problem in an open court and ordered slapping a case against him when he failed, inviting strong observations from the judge who wanted "soulless" authorities to close down education "tuck shops".

The direction came yesterday when Justice Muzaffar Hussain Attar was hearing a petition challenging appointment of Mohammad Imran Khan as Rehbar-e-Taleem (education guide) teacher in a school in south Kashmir, reports The Times of India.

The petitioner had alleged that 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 percent, 73 percent and 66 percent in Urdu, English and Maths respectively.

The court asked a senior counsel to give a simple line for translation from English to Urdu and vice-versa but the teacher failed.

The teacher was then asked to write an essay on 'cow' in Urdu, but he failed. Khan sought permission to write the essay outside the court room, which was granted but he failed again.

Khan, who claimed he had better hold on Mathematics, was then asked to solve a maths problem for 4th graders.

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 over-looked the Himalayan blunders committed in procuring the academic degrees," the court observed.