STATE OF U P Vs. PAWAN KUMAR DIVEDI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Special leave granted in all the special leave petitions. All the special leave petitions have been taken up together since they involve a common question of law arising out of similar facts. SLP Nos. 3549/05, 3554/05, 24019/04 and 20410/05 have been filed by the State of Uttar Pradesh against the Committee of Management of different Institutions having a primary section. SLP No. 9978/03 has been filed by the Principal Secretary, Basic Education of the U.P. Government and SLP 3551/05 has been filed by the District Basic Education Officer of the Uttar Pradesh administration.

(2.) The common question arising in all these appeals is whether teachers of privately-managed primary schools and primary sections of privately-managed schools imparting education up to the High School level, are eligible to receive their salaries from the State Government. Schools in Uttar Pradesh are either under public management or under private management. Public institutions are managed either directly by the government departments or by the District Boards and Municipal Boards. Privately managed institutions may be divided into two categories, namely, "aided institutions" and "unaided institutions". Aided institutions are those which are private recognized institutions which receive grant-in-aid from public funds. Unaided institutions are those which do not receive any form of financial assistance whatsoever from public funds. The students of the different secondary and primary schools are categorized as belonging to the pre-basic stage, junior basic (primary) stage, senior basic (junior high school) stage and higher secondary stage. Pre-basic stage comprises of the nursery section. Junior Basic (primary) stage refers to classes I to V. Senior Basic (junior high school) stage refers to classes VI to VIII. The higher secondary stage is comprised of two stages, namely, high school stage comprising classes IX and X and Intermediate stage comprising Classes XI and XII.

(3.) Prior to 1972 the basic schools were controlled either by the Zila Parishad and Nagar Palika or were under private management recognized by the appropriate authority and in some cases primary section was being run along with the junior high school, higher secondary and intermediate college sections. The recognition of the institutions and service conditions of the teachers were governed under the provisions of the Education Code. In 1972, the U.P. Basic Education Act was enacted and came into force from 17th August 1972. Under the said Act, a Board known as Board of Directors of Basic Education was established, inter alia, to organize, co-ordinate and control the imparting of basic education and teachers training therefore in the state, to raise its standard and to co-relate it with the system of education as a whole in the state and generally to exercise supervision and control over basic schools. Under the said Act "basic education" was defined in Section 2 (1) (b) to mean education up to the VIIIth class imparted in schools other than high schools or intermediate colleges, and the expression "basic schools" was to be construed accordingly. The said Act did not make any provision for payment of salary to the teachers of the basic schools but power was vested in the State Government under Section 19 of the Act to make rules relating inter alia to the recruitment and the conditions of service of persons appointed to the posts of teachers and other employees of basic schools recognized by the Board.