SHRI KADAM RAHUL SHIVAJI Vs. STATE OF MAHARASHTRA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Respondents waive service. By consent, rule is made returnable forthwith and the petitions are taken up for hearing and final disposal. All these four writ petitions revolve around the same set of facts and seek same reliefs and hence they are heard together and disposed of by this common judgment. All the four writ petitions are filed by the petitioners seeking directions to the Respondents, State of Maharashtra and its subordinates in the Department of Education to grant individual approval to the appointment of the petitioners effected on the post of clerk/peon from the date of their initial appointment and all the petitioners pray for release of salary in their favour, on grant of such approval.

(2.) In order to appreciate the grievance of the petitioners in the respective petitions, it is necessary to refer to certain factual events which are common to all the petitioners except the variance in the dates on which the events took place. In W.P. No. 5547 of 2014 petitioner No.1 Rahul Shivaji Kadam and petitioner No.2 Shaikh Javed Ahmad are presently working on the establishment of Respondent No.5/ Shri Datta Vidya Mandir, Akkalkot Road, Solapur as clerk and peon respectively and their appointments are effectted from 25th June, 2007 and 16th June, 2009 respectively. As far as W.P. No. 1503 of 2015 is concerned the petitioner is working as clerk in Devraj Primary School, Solapur i.e. Respondent No.5. He is appointed in the said post from 10th July, 2003. In W.P. No. 6299 of 2014 petitioner, namely Deepak Sidharam Fule is working as clerk and petitioner No.2 Bhalchandra Mahendra More is working as peon in Jay Bharat Primary School, Solapur i.e. respondent No.5 from 1 st June, 2004. In W.P. No. 2330 of 2015 which is filed by Adarsh Kannad Vidyalay,M.I.D.C. Nilam Nagar, Solapur, petitioner No.2 Sagari Irshad Mahiboob is working as clerk in the establishment of petitioner No.1 since 26th July, 2004 whereas petitioner no. 3 Kumbharikar Bhutalsidha Mahadev is working as peon in petitioner no.1 school from 26th July, 2004. All the petitioners are constrained to approach this Court, aggrieved by the action of the respondents in denying approval to their appointments in spite of the fact that they are in service since considerably long period of time and they have been deprived of benefit of approval in view of the new policy of the State Government by which the restriction is imposed on absorption of persons like the petitioners, until the surplus non-teaching staff is absorbed.

(3.) The State of Maharashtra has an existing policy in regard to sanction of non-teaching post on the establishment of a primary school, on crossing the strength of 500 students in terms of Rule 115 (3) (b) of the Bombay Primary Education Rules, 1949 and according to the said Rules a primary school having 500 or more students or on its roll are entitled for having one post of junior clerk and one post of Class-IV employee (peon) to be sanctioned on its establishment. The respective school in which the petitioners in all the petitions seeking relief before us were working reached the desired number of 500 students in different academic years and the respective schools sought permission from respondent No.3 and Respondent No.4 for filling up the said post either of peon or the clerk as the case may be and after issuing advertisement carried out the recruitment process for filling up the said post. All the petitioners before us were qualified to be appointed to the post of clerk/peon as the case may be, participated in the selection process pursuant to the advertisement and were appointed on the respective posts on different dates which we have already mentioned above, and they are holding the said post since their date of appointment on the establishment of the different schools in Solapur District. On the issuance of order of appointments the respective schools submitted their proposal seeking approval to their appointments from the date of their initial appointments to the Education Officer Primary School, Zilla Parishad, District Solapur and the Education Officer taking into account the fact that the respective schools were eligible for sanction of non- teaching staff in the backdrop of the strength of the students in the said school directed respective schools to submit fresh proposal for approval of non-teaching staff and accordingly respective schools forwarded the proposal for individual approval in favour of the petitioners on the post of clerk/peon as the case may be.