Y SELVARAJ Vs. STATE OF TAMIL NADU

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE petitioners are the retired Government servants receiving pension having retired as Headmasters of Government Primary Schools in Kanyakumari District. When they retired, they were governed by the Tamil Nadu Elementary Education subordinate Service Rules. The Tamil Nadu Government in the V Pay Commission, granted higher pay for primary school Headmasters and from 1. 6. 1988, they were given the scale of pay applicable to Headmasters.

(2.) ALL the petitioners were appointed as Headmasters of primary schools in the above said District by way of recruitment by transfer from the post of Secondary grade Teachers based on district seniority as per the directions of the Director of School Education dated 2. 1. 1996, by which the second respondent directed his subordinates in the then Nellai Kattabomman District and Kanyakumari District to fill up the posts of Headmasters by recruitment by transfer from the post of secondary Grade Teachers based on district level seniority. 2 (a ). After 1. 6. 2000, the posts of Headmasters of Primary Schools came to be filled up by promoting the secondary grade teachers as Headmasters. Therefore, in Kanyakumari District all persons appointed as Headmasters on promotion after 1. 6. 2000 were juniors to the petitioners. The petitioners have continuously worked as Headmasters of Primary Schools and retired. 2 (b ). It is stated that the Chief Educational Officer, Nagercoil and the District Elementary Educational officer in Kanyakumari District, wrote to the second and third respondents to revise the pay of petitioners as applicable to the Headmasters from the date of their appointment by transfer. 2 (c ). The petitioners and others approached this court by filing W. P. 26005 of 2005, for direction to refix their pay. The said writ petition came to be disposed of on 16. 8. 2005 with direction to dispose of the appeal dated 7. 3. 2005 filed on behalf of the petitioners. Since no order was passed, contempt application was filed in Contempt Petition No. 497 of 2006 and thereafter, the first respondent passed the impugned order dated 18. 4. 2007.

(3.) IN the impugned order the claim of the petitioners was rejected on the ground that originally when the petitioners were appointed in primary schools, the said schools were forming part of Tiruvancore Cochin State. Those schools were brought under the control of the Director of School Education before the primary and middle schools in Kanyakumari District were brought under the primary School Department. As per the directions of the then Director of School education, whenever vacancies arose in the primary schools, the Secondary Grade teachers working in the District under the district level seniority, on promotion basis, were directed to work as Headmasters in the Primary Schools in the scale of pay of Secondary Grade Teachers and that was only a temporary arrangement. It is also stated that 174 persons including the petitioners were directed to work as Headmasters of Primary Schools in the scale of pay of secondary grade teachers and they were not permanent posts and they were not working permanently and therefore, the claim of the petitioners that their salary should be fixed in the scale of pay of Primary School Headmasters from 1. 1. 1996 to 31. 5. 2000 followed by the consequential pensionary and other benefits came to be rejected. It was as against the said impugned order, the writ petition is filed on various grounds including that the same has been passed without application of mind and that the petitioners" appointment as headmasters was a permanent appointment by way of recruitment by transfer and they were continuously working as Headmasters till their retirement and therefore, the same cannot be stated as a temporary arrangement.