Patna High Court
Case Details
IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT PATNA CIVIL WRIT JURISDICTION CASE NO.5403 OF 2012 =================================================== RAGHAWENDRA JHA SON OF LATE DHANUSHDHARI JHA RESIDENT OF VILLAGE & P.O.-PARIHARPUR, P.S.- RAJNAGAR, DISTRICT-MADHUBANI. .... .... PETITIONER/S VERSUS HUMAN RESOURCES PRINCIPAL 1.THE STATE OF BIHAR 2.THE SECRETARY, DEVELOPMENT DEPARTMENT, GOVERNMENT OF BIHAR, PATNA 3.THE DIRECTOR (SECONDARY EDUCATION), BIHAR SECONDARY EDUCATION OFFICE, BUDHHA MARG, PATNA 4.THE HEADMASTER, LAXMI NARAYAN GUPTA RAMSAKHI PROJECT GORLS HIGH SCHOOL, RAJNAGAR, DISTRICT- MADHEPURA 5.SMT. KANTI DEVI WIFE OF SRI SATYA NARAYAN RAI RESIDENT OF VILLAGE & P.O.-MAHESHWARA, POLICE STATION & ANCHAL-BABU BARAHI, DISTRICT-MADHUBANI, PRESENTLY POSTED AS ASSISTANT TEACHER IN LAXMI NARAYAN GUPTA RAMSAKHI PROJECT GIRLS HIGH SCHOOL, DISTRICT-MADHUBANI. .... .... RESPONDENT/S =================================================== Appearance : For the Petitioner/s:Mr. Gyanand Roy, Adv. For the Respondent/s:Mr. Dhurjati Kr Prasad GP7 For Respondent no. 5:Mr. Rajeev Kumar Singh,Adv with Mr. Rakesh Kumar Singh. For Respondent no. 4:Mr. Krishna Kant Singh, Adv. =================================================== CORAM: HONOURABLE MR. JUSTICE MIHIR KUMAR JHA ORAL ORDER 6/ 24-07-2013 Heard learned counsel for the parties. The prayer of the petitioner in this writ application reads as follows:- "For quashing the relevant part of the impugned office order issued vide Memo No. 38P, dated 01.02.2012 under the signature of Director (Secondary Education), Bihar, Patna by which the service of respondent no. 5, Smt. Kanti Devi has wrongly and illegally been recognized as Assistant Teacher (Sanskrit), Laxmi Narayan Gupta Ramsakhi Project Girls High District Rajnagar, School, Patna High Court CWJC No.5403 of 2012 (6) dt.24-07-2013 2 of in place
Legal Reasoning
the Madhubani petitioner because the petitioner was appointed and is working as Sanskrit teacher in the said school and Respondent NO. 5, Smt. Kanti Devi was appointed as Assistant Teacher in Hindi in the said school. ii. the respondents to recognize the services of the petitioner on the post of Sanskrit teacher in the aforesaid Laxmi Narayan Gupta Project Ramsakhi High District Rajnagar, School, Madhubani and to grant other consequential benefits accordingly." commanding Girls For Mr. Gyanand Roy, learned counsel appearing on behalf of the petitioner in support of the aforementioned prayer has basically concentrated on the aspect that the State Government has committed an error in treating the petitioner to be the second Sanskrit teacher Laxmi Narayan Gupta Ramsakhi Project Girls High School, Rajnagar, hereinafter referred to as the school inasmuch as, the appointment letter of respondent no. 5 would go to show that she was actually appointed against the post of Hindi teacher and therefore she could not be treated to be the first teacher of Sanskrit in the school. He has further submitted that there is still a possibility to accommodate both the petitioner and respondent no. 5, inasmuch as the post of Hindi teacher is vacant. Patna High Court CWJC No.5403 of 2012 (6) dt.24-07-2013 3 Learned counsel for the respondent no. 5 on the other hand has submitted that respondent no. 5 was possessing the qualification of Shastri on the date of her appointment i.e. 03.01.1983 and as such if the Government has ultimately decided to absorb her on the post of Sanskrit teacher that cannot be objected to by the petitioner specially when he did not even possess the qualification of Sanskrit Teacher i.e. Shastri as on 02.01.1985 the date on which he got appointed in the School. In the considered opinion of this Court, whenever the Government has to decide the issue of absorption in a taken over school either nationalized high school or a project school, it is well within the power of the Government to screen the service records of the concerned teachers. If in course of such screening the Government has found the petitioner to be the second teacher holding the qualification of Sanskrit teacher on the date of takeover of the school and the respondent no. 5 to be the first teacher on the basis of her earlier appointment having qualification of Sanskrit teacher much ice cannot be cut by the petitioner only on the basis that in the initial appointment letter of Patna High Court CWJC No.5403 of 2012 (6) dt.24-07-2013 4 respondent no. 5, the managing committee had appointed her against the post of Hindi teacher. This Court in fact is not even required to look into such claim of the managing committee which was doing all sort of acts to adjust a large number of persons even when they did not possess the requisite qualification for the post of teacher. The managing committee infact when it had appointed Respondent no. 5 on 3.1.1983 on the post of Hindi Teacher she was actually possessing the qualification of Shastri meant for Sanskrit Teacher. Therefore when Respondent no. 5 did not possess the qualification for the post of Hindi Teacher she could not have been absorbed on the post of Hindi Teacher. As a matter of fact when the Managing Committee had appointed the petitioner on 2.1.1985 on the post of Sanskrit Teacher he too did not possess the prescribed qualification for the post of Sanskrit Teacher. Thus when as per the order of the Apex Court, the three man Committee had examined the issue and had found that the petitioner and respondent no. 5 both were possessing the qualification of Sanskrit teacher and respondent no. 5 was senior in length of service on account Patna High Court CWJC No.5403 of 2012 (6) dt.24-07-2013 5 of her date of joining i.e., 03.01.1983 as against the petitioner whose date of joining was 02.01.1985 no error can be said to have been committed in absorbing respondent no. 5 against the post of Sanskrit teacher. The submission of learned counsel for respondent no. 5 that on 02.01.1985 when the petitioner got appointed as a Sanskrit teacher of the School, he did not possess the prescribed qualification of Shastri is also worth acceptance and to that extent reliance placed by learned counsel for the petitioner on the certificate of passing of Shastri examination dated 24.07.2000 showing the petitioner to have passed the 1985 Shastri examination also gets automatically explained from the marksheet of the same examination which was actually issued on 09.05.1986. Thus, it becomes clear that 1985 examination of Shastri in which the petitioner had appeared was held sometime in the year 1985- 86 and its result, results were published in the year 1986. This Court would also find the same in the admission of the petitioner in paragraph no. 5 of the writ application wherein, he himself has accepted to have passed the Shastri examination only in 1986. Paragraph no. 5 of the Patna High Court CWJC No.5403 of 2012 (6) dt.24-07-2013 6 writ application reads as follows:- he the "That petitioner Subsequently passed Madhyama Examination 1980 in 3rd Division securing 43% marks from Kameshwar Singh Darbhanga University, Darbhang. passed intermediate (Up Shastri) Examination 1982 in 3rd Division securing 42% marks from the aforesaid University. From the same very University the petitioner, thereafter passed Shastri Examination 1986 in 2nd Division securing 46.25% marks. The petitioner also passed Acharya (M.A.-Sanskrit) examination Rashtriya Sanskrit Sansthan, New Delhi. It is pertinent to state here that the qualification of Acharya (equivalent to the petitioner after his appointment as Assistant Teacher in Sanskrit in Laxmi Narayna Gupta Ramsakhi Project Girls High District Madhubani." Rajnagar, acquired School, M.A.) 2005 from was by (underlining for emphasis) That by itself would go to show that on 02.01.1985, the petitioner did not possess the qualification of Sanskrit teacher as on the date i.e. 02.01.1985. The Apex Court had already clarified in its judgment that only such teachers could be absorbed in service in taken over Project Schools who at the time of their initial appointment were possessing the requisite qualification. The petitioner however was not possessing the requisite qualification as on the date of his appointment, inasmuch as, no Sanskrit teacher could have been appointed in Patna High Court CWJC No.5403 of 2012 (6) dt.24-07-2013 7 a High School without the requisite qualification of Shastri. Thus, the rejection of the case of the petitioner for his being absorbed in the project school does not suffer from any error. That being so, this Court does find any error in the decision contained in the impugned order refusing to absorb by way of takeover of the services of the petitioner in the project school in question. This writ application is devoid of any merit and it is, accordingly, dismissed. Ranjan (Mihir Kumar Jha, J)