DEEPA RACHAL GEORGE Vs. SHERIN ANNIE JOSEPH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The appellant Smt.Deepa Rachel George was the 5 th respondent in WP(C) No. 34590/2018. The writ petition was filed by the 1st respondent herein challenging Exts.P7 and P13 and sought for a direction to respondents 1 to 4 to allow the petitioner to continue as Training School Assistant (T.S.A.) (Malayalam) in preference to the 6th respondent and to direct respondents 3 and 4 to retrench the 5th respondent from service. The petitioner Sherin Annie Joseph was appointed by the 4 th respondent Manager of A.M.M.T.T.I. and U.P. School, Maramon as T.S.A. (Malayalam) on 20/6/2016 in a retirement vacancy. Her appointment had been approved by the educational authorities. The 5th and 6th respondent were working as HSA (Malayalam) in the school managed by the very same Manager, the 4 th respondent. The 6th respondent was senior to the 5th respondent. During 2018-19 when the staff fixation order dated 28/6/2018 of the M.M.A. High School was published, there occurred a division fall in the High School division of Malayalam. In Ext.P6 staff fixation order, the educational authorities found that Smt.Deepa Rachel George being the Junior requires to be retrenched. The Manager by Ext.P7 order dated 9/7/2018 appointed the 6 th respondent Smt.Sunu George as T.S.A. (Malayalam) in the place of the petitioner and the 5th respondent who was not qualified to be appointed as T.S.A.(Malayalam) was accommodated in the vacancy of the 6th respondent and thereby retrenched the petitioner who was the junior most. By Ext.P13 order dated 15/10/2018, the District Educational Officer has approved Ext.P7 order.

(2.) The learned Single Judge by the impugned judgment arrived at a conclusion that in so far as the posts of TSA and HSA are not interchangeable and no material had been produced to show that those were interchangeable posts, the fact that a common seniority list of the staff and teachers of the training institute and the High School under the same management had been prepared, by itself does not indicate that the staff of either of the schools could be interchanged in order to accommodate a teacher who is found excess in one school. Accordingly, the writ petition was allowed setting aside Exts.P7 and P13 orders.

(3.) Learned counsel for the appellant Smt.Aruna A. submits that in the judgment in Sanjeevan v. District Educational Officer (2000 (2) KLT 130), a Division Bench of this Court has approved that a training institute and a regular school managed by the same management have to be treated as a single unit and therefore a claim under Rule 43 of Chapter XIVA of KER cannot be overlooked. That apart, it is argued that when the 6th respondent was qualified to be appointed as T.S.A., in the light of Ext.P6 order itself, it was open for the Manager to make suitable arrangements to ensure that the retrenched teacher is accommodated in terms with the order dated 1/07/2017 of the Director of Public Instruction. It is submitted that the 5 th respondent was appointed as HSA (Malayalam) in the High School in the year 2006 and the 6th respondent was working earlier as TSA (Malayalam) from 5/6/1995 in different spells and it was thereafter she was appointed as HSA(Malayalam) in the High School. In so far as the scale of pay of TSA (Malayalam) and HSA (Malayalam) being one and the same, shifting of 6 th respondent from the school to the training institute as TSA (Malayalam) is legal and proper. Manager was only rearranging the teachers of both the school on the basis of seniority and qualification and therefore there was no reason for the learned Single Judge to have interfered in the matter. She also argued that the Government itself has in its circular dated 22/10/2018 had treated the TSA of a training school and HSA of the High School as similar posts.