The Uttar Pradesh government will appeal against an order of the Allahabad High Court quashing the selection process for appointment of 13,000 Urdu teachers in the state, a top official said Saturday.

"We will make an appeal before the Supreme Court," a senior official and aide of Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati told IANS on the condition of anonymity.

The court Friday annulled the recruitment of teachers made by the previous Mulayam Singh Yadav regime.

A single-judge bench comprising Justice Arun Tandon ruled: "Urdu is not one of the language subjects included in the syllabus of nursery or junior basic schools. Therefore, no teacher for imparting education in Urdu is required in such institutions."

The court order comes close on the heels of Mayawati's decision to sack 6,500 police constables recruited during the previous regime.

However, unlike the case of police recruits, the state government has decided to come to the rescue of the Urdu teachers.

Explaining the dichotomy, the official pointed out: "Unlike the police recruitment scam in which gross irregularities were unearthed, in this case, no irregularity is alleged from any quarter.

"The honourable court has cancelled the appointments because it felt that there was no need for Urdu teachers, so we have all the right to challenge the order before the country's apex court."

Meanwhile, Urdu teachers staged a protest demonstration before the basic education directorate here Saturday.

The court ruling came on a writ petition moved by a group of individuals led by a Muslim girl, Sumbul Naqvi, who was of the view that the premise of the appointments was legally not tenable.

Naqvi had challenged the appointment of 13,000 Urdu teachers under the previous government's plan to run a two-year special Urdu Basic Teachers Certificate (BTC) programme between 2005 and 2006.

Even when the appointments were made, political parties like the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had accused the Samajwadi Party government of aiming to seek political mileage as bulk of the appointees were Muslims.

Yadav's arch-rival Mayawati, however, does not wish to reverse at least one decision of the previous government.

"We will do our best to save the jobs of 13,000 Urdu teachers who generally come from poor families," asserted her aide.

Samajwadi Party spokesman Rajendra Chaudhary too had given a similar reason while defending the appointments. "Our intention was absolutely clear and straight - to popularise Urdu and simultaneously create employment for that section of society that has remained economically downtrodden and merits special attention."