P S VELAYUDHAN Vs. DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC INSTRUCTION

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petitioner is the General Manager of the corporate management of the S.N.D.P. Yogam Schools. It runs various schools under its management. Dr. Palpu Memorial Lower Primary School was a school under a different management and there was a transfer of management of that school to the petitioner as evidenced by a joint application filed by the management of Dr. Palpu Lower Primary School and the petitioner to the Assistant Educational Officer, Iritty. That application indicated that such transfer of management was on 20-2-1975. Though at some point of time there was a doubt as to whether it was a transfer of management coupled with transfer of ownership, it is said that no transfer of ownership was involved, but there was only transfer of management. Even so, it is the stand taken by the Director of Public Instruction that protected teachers in the transferred school must be absorbed in the other schools of the 1st petitioner management. That resulted in Ext P5 direction which is challenged in this petition. That is a letter written by the Director of Public Instruction to the District Educational Officers and the Assistant Educational Officers to approve no appointment of P. D. teachers in any school owned by the S.N.D.P. Yogam, Quilon until protected teachers of Dr. Palpu Memorial Lower Primary School had been absorbed in the other schools of management. Consequent upon this the District Educational Officers and Assistant Educational Officers conducted themselves as persons bound by Ext. P5. That is the complaint.

(2.) I am not going into the question here as to whether the 1st petitioner is under an obligation to absorb the protected teachers of Dr. Palpu Memorial Lower Primary School. It is agreed that this is not necessary for the purpose of this petition The plea of the petitioner that the Director of Public Instruction was not competent to interfere with the statutory functions of the educational authorities in the matter of approval of appointment of teachers is well founded. It is only the District Educational Officers and in certain cases the Assistant Educational Officers that are competent to approve or not to approve the appointment of teachers. That discretion, they must exercise in regard to each and every case; they cannot be directed by the discretion of another authority, however high that authority may be. This is a principle well settled and in fact stated by the Supreme Court as early as in 1952 in the decision reported in Commr. of Police v. Gordhandas ( AIR 1952 SC 16 ) and that principle has been reiterated again by the Supreme Court in the decisions reported in State of Punjab and another v. Hari Krishna Sharma ( AIR 1966 SC 1081 ) and Purtabpur Co. v. Cane Commr. Bihar ( AIR 1970 SC 1896 ). It goes without saying that Ext. P5 is a direction which is incompetent. Learned counsel for the respondents did not seek to support that direction as one binding on the educational authorities but explains it as merely conveying the opinion by the Director of Public Instruction, for whatever it was worth. It is sufficient in these circumstances to direct that the question of approval of appointment of teachers in the schools of the petitioner arising from time to time will be decided independently and without reference to Ext. P5 and without being influenced by that direction. To that extent the Original Petition is allowed. I direct parties to suffer costs in this petition.