SECRETORY MANAGING COMMITTEE SHRI AUROBINDO INSTITUTE OF INTEGRAL EDUCATION AND RESEARCH Vs. STATE OF EDUCATION TRIBUNAL

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This Letters Patent Appeal has been filed challenging the judgment dated 4-9-200Q passed by a learned Judge of the writ Court. While delivering the said judgment, the learned Judge of the writ Court was pleased to upheld the order passed by the State Education Tribunal whereby the appeals filed by the present respondents 6 to 9 against the order of termination of their services, were allowed setting aside the order of termination. Against the said order of the Tribunal, a writ petition was filed by the Secretary of the Managing Committee of Shri Aurobindo Institute of Integral Education and Research (hereinafter referred to as "the said institution") and the respondents 6 to 9 were the private Opp. Parties to the said writ application. Before the writ Court the said institution claimed the status of a minority institution. Before us the said point of minority status was not pressed by the learned counsel for the appellant in view of the decision of the Supreme Court in the case of S. P. Mittal v. Union of India, AIR 1983 SC 1.

(2.) The case of the respondents whose services were terminated was that the said institution became eligible to receive grant- in-aid which is covered by the definition of Section 3(b) of the Orissa Education Act, 1969. It is also contended that since the institution is covered under Section 3(b), it cannot dispense with the services of the respondents without obtaining prior approval of the State Government as per the requirement of Section 10-A of the Act. Learned counsel for the appellant submitted that the said institution is not an institution which can be called as one which has received grant-in-aid. It was submitted before us that the said institution received grant-in-aid that too Block-grant to the tune of Rs. 87,242/- only once and thereafter, it had not received any grant. Therefore, the said institution cannot be treated as covered by the definition of Section 3(b) of the said Act. In support of his contention, learned counsel for the appellant relied upon two decisions of this Court; one of them was rendered by a Division Bench of this Court in the case of Assistant Personnel Manager (G) Hindustan Steel Ltd. v. Elias Minz, 1987 (1) OLR 645. In the said judgment, the learned Judges of the Division Bench held that unless grant- in-aid is received continuously, casual ex gratia grant cannot bring the institution within the scope of aided institution under the said Act. A subsequent judgment of this court in the case of The Managing Committee of Gangapur High Schools v. The Presiding Officer, Orissa State Education Tribunal, 1989 (1) OLR 42, following the previous judgment in the case of Hindustan Steel Ltd. (supra) also came to the same conclusion i.e. unless receipt of grant is continuous, mere intermittent grant on one or two occasions cannot bring the institution within the meaning of aided educational institution under Section 3(b) of the said Act. Placing reliance on the said judgment, learned counsel for the appellant submitted that in the instant case, the appellant's institution received grant-in-aid only once. Therefore, it is not an aided institution as held by the writ Court and as such, the order of the writ Court may be quashed.

(3.) Coming to the definition of "aided educational institution" under the Orissa Education Act, 1969, this Court finds that the aforesaid contention raised by the learned counsel for "the appellant possibly cannot be sustained. The definition of "aided educational institution" under Section 3(b) of the said Act suffered an amendment in the year 1994. Now after amendment the definition of "aided educational institution" under Section 3(b) of the Act is as follows :