DUSHASAN JENA Vs. STATE OF ORISSA AND ORS.

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petitioner has filed this application seeking to declare the selection of State Award of the year 1998 in favour of the opposite party no.5 as illegal and arbitrary and further seeking for a direction to give the award to the person selected made by the District and State Level Selection Committee for the year 1998 forthwith.

(2.) The short fact of the case, in hand, is that the petitioner being the senior most Assistant Teacher, remained in-charge of Headmaster of Muralidhara High School, Badhamunda, in the district of Jajpur. He was appointed on 05.08.1963 and became a Trained Graduate in 1969. Because of his performance, he had received many awards from local authorities. Every year the Government of Orissa in Department of School and Mass Education arranges an Award Distribution Ceremony on the occasion of 26th January, i.e. Republic Day, to distribute State Awards to the best Teachers among the Headmasters/Headmistress and Teachers of recognized Primary, Middle, Secondary and Secondary Training Schools/DIET having at least 15 years of teaching experience in Primary and Secondary Schools including other teachers as mentioned in the Government proposal. The eligibility principles for the year 1998 have been decided by the Government. Accordingly, the eligibility criteriahas been incorporated by the State Authority which has been mentioned in Annexure-1. The Government has decided to give all total 50 awards to the Teachers including Primary, Secondary and Sanskrit Toll teachers and it was decided on principle that there shall be one award for each Revenue District. For the year 1998 the Government has decided in principle that 30 awards would be given to the Primary School Teachers and 19 awards to the Secondary Teachers and one award to the Sanskrit Tool, in total the number is 50. There is only one award for Primary Section and one award for Secondary Section for the district of Jajpur. The selection process was very strict and hard, and therefore, there were two selection committees for the purpose of selection of best teachers to receive the award. For this purpose, a high level selection committee was formed to select a best Teacher for the district of Jajpur, both from Primary Section and Secondary Section. There were two selection committees, namely, (i) District Level Selection Committee and (ii) State Level Selection Committee. District level Selection Committee is the Primary Committee which after thorough scrutiny and sincere selection, recommends the names of the teachers for final selection by the State Level Committee. The State Level Selection Committee is the final authority for the purpose. The petitioner along with other eligible teachers of Jajpur Secondary Education applied for the State Award, 1998 and the District Selection Committee after thorough scrutiny and assessment of all the service records of the teachers applied for the State Award, recommended the names of two teachers, namely, the petitioner and Bhagyadhara Sahoo, opposite party no.5 herein for final selection by the State Level Selection Committee. The State Level Selection Committee like the District level Selection Committee has been duly constituted with very high level officials. The State Level Selection Committee after thorough scrutiny and over-all assessment of the recommended teachers, selected the petitioner to receive the State Award to Teacher of 1998 to be placed before the Government for approval.

(3.) Instead of approving the same, the then Minister of School and Mass Education Department, opposite party no.4 suo motu directed the Director, Secondary Education to reconsider again whether the petitioner stood first or the opposite party no.5. The Director, Secondary Education without sending the matter back to the State Level Selection Committee, personally submitted a report to the Secretary, School and Mass Education Department and selected the opposite party no.5 for the State Award to Teachers, 1998. Hence, this application.