“Education Department is responsible for not doing justice to the teachers.”
Patna High Court: A Single Judge Bench comprising of Anil Kumar Upadhyay, J. slammed the education department for denying promotion to a teacher citing his superannuation as a reason for the same.
Petitioner, an employee of a middle school, underwent teachers’ training post which he became a graduate trained teacher. He claimed the relevant pay scale from the date of acquiring training certificate by filing a writ petition. This Court directed authorities to consider his claim. While respondent granted benefits of trained scale to other teachers who were similarly circumstanced, no corrective measures were adopted with regard to petitioner’s claim which compelled him to file another petition for the same relief. Once again, this Court directed the respondent to consider the case of the petitioner. After much delay, Director of Primary Education rejected the claim of petitioner stating that his name had been deleted from the graduation list as he had superannuated and was thus, no longer eligible for graduate trained scale with retrospective effect. Aggrieved thereby, the instant petition was filed.
The Court noted that despite two court orders, respondent had delayed in deciding petitioner’s claim, and now after two decades were rejecting petitioner’s claim on the ground that he had superannuated and promotion could not be granted to him with retrospective effect. It was observed that respondents could not take advantage of their own wrong in this manner.
Secondly, the discriminatory approach in denying promotion to petitioner when other similarly circumstanced teachers were granted the same, was violative Articles 14 and 16 of the Constitution of India.
Placing reliance on the dictum in Naseem Bano v. State of Uttar Pradesh, 1993 Supp (4) SCC 46 where it was as it is the obligation of State authorities to grant promotion in accordance with law, the instant petition was allowed holding the actions of respondent’s as illegal.[Bhushan Prasad Singh v. State of Bihar, 2018 SCC OnLine Pat 2114, decided on 22-11-2018]