Allahabad High Court: In an intra court appeal against the judgment passed by a Single Judge dismissing writ petition filed by the appellant challenging his removal from a post of lecturer in Christ Church College, Lucknow (‘college'), on the ground that the removal was done in violation of Section 16 G (3) of the U. P. Intermediate Education Act, 1921, the division bench of Ramesh Sinha and Subhash Vidyarthi, JJ. upheld the order of the Single Judge and said that the provisions of Section 16 G (3) of the U.P. Intermediate Education Act are not applicable to the teachers employed in private minority institutions. Thus, the writ petition filed by a former teacher against the private unaided minority institution challenging the order of his termination and seeking restitution of his service, is not maintainable.
In the case at hand, the appellant challenged the oral termination of his services mainly on the ground that before dispensing with his services, no approval required under Section 16 G (3) of the U. P. Intermediate Education Act was obtained.
The Court took note of St. Mary’s Education Society v. Rajendra Prasad Bhargava, 2022 SCC OnLine SC 1091 , and said that the employees of a private educational institution would not have the right to invoke the powers of the High Court conferred by Article 226 in respect of matters relating to service where they are not governed or controlled by the statutory provisions.
Placing reliance on Committee of Management, St. John Inter College v. Girdhari Singh, (2001) 4 SCC 296, the Court said that the provisions of Section 16 G (3) of the U.P. Intermediate Education Act are not applicable to the teachers employed in private minority institutions. There is no other Statutory provision, which is alleged to have been violated in the instant case. Therefore, the Court agreed with the view taken by the Single Judge that the writ petition filed by a former teacher against the private unaided minority institution challenging the order of his termination and seeking restitution of his service, is not maintainable.
Further, the Court said that the writ petition would not be maintainable for one more reason that there are several disputed questions of fact involved in the case. The appellant claims that he had been duly selected and appointed, but he has not filed a copy of the appointment letter or a contract of appointment from which his service conditions may be ascertained. The college has contended neither any advertisement had been issued nor any selection was held and on a personal request made by the appellant, he had been orally engaged to work and after he had worked merely for about 4 months, he misbehaved with the Principal of the college and the Principal had filed a First Information Report against him. The appellant did not perform his duties since thereafter.
[Devesh Verma v. Christ Church College, 2023 SCC OnLine All 7, decided on 02-01-2023]
Advocates who appeared in this case :
Counsel for Appellant: – Advocate Ramesh Chandra Saxena, Advocate Gaurav Saxena
Counsel for Respondent: – Advocate Jai Pratap Singh
*Apoorva Goel, Editorial Assistant ha reported this brief.