MANOHAR AND ORS. Vs. THE DIRECTOR OF VOCATIONAL EDUCATION AND TRAINING, DIRECTORATE, MAHARASHTRA STATE AND ORS.

JUDGEMENT

(1.) All these petitioners are employees working with Shivaji Education Society at Amravati in its School imparting education in MCV Courses. The other respondents in writ petitions are State of Maharashtra, through its Secretary, Vocational Education and Training, Director and Deputy Director of Vocational Education. This Court has passed various interim orders in the matters and, therefore, service or status of petitioners has remained protected since 2001 till date, i.e. almost for 14 years. Petitioner in Writ Petition No.3580/2001 Shri Manohar Yawle reached age of superannuation and retired on 30/4/2014. Petitioner in Writ Petition No.3149/2001 Shri Shrikant Deshmukh reaches age of superannuation on 31/10/2015.

(2.) During hearing, Shri Sambre, who appears for said educational Society (employer) has pointed out that roster has been finalised by Department in the year 2007 and as per his instructions, all petitioners before this Court now fall within the sanctioned strength.

(3.) Respective Counsel for petitioners, namely, Shri Mohokar, Shri Dangre and Shri Parsodkar after briefly inviting our attention to history, state that all petitioners were validly selected as Instructors and were possessing necessary qualification. There were two groups in Management and because of infighting, both groups effected recruitment and hence, against a single vacancy, two eligible persons became available. The Management, in this situation, terminated services of about 103 employees, who in turn approached School Tribunal and thereafter this Court in various writ petitions. This Court after acknowledging the fact that employees could not be blamed for the said state of affairs, expressed a need to resolve the situation. Accordingly, Management as also Department at the relevant time tried to find out whether persons recruited in excess could have been absorbed as Teachers, i.e. on higher post than post of Instructor. For that purpose, a seniority list of such persons was drawn and those who were more senior/meritorious were then promoted as Teachers. Initially about 2-3 such promotions were approved by the Department. However, later on Department realised that there was no such promotional channel and hence, approval was rejected, with the result, Management was left with no option, but to ask such Teachers to join back on their posts as Instructors. In some cases, orders of termination were also issued.