PADI BABY Vs. NABAM PARI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) All these petitions under Article 226 of the Constitution of India have been filed by the respective petitioners praying for setting aside the impugned order vide Memo No. AR/SSA/ESTT/APTET and CTET/Regu/Teacher/2017-18 dated 21.12.2017, whereby the regularization/appointment of the petitioners as Trained Graduate Teachers (for short TGT) and Primary Teachers (for short PRT) respectively, under the department of Elementary Education, Government of Arunachal Pradesh vide common order No. AR/SSA/ESTT/APTET/CTET/Regu/teacher/2016-2017 dated 7.12.2017 has been withdrawn. The petitioners also pray for issuance of direction to the respondent authorities to allow the petitioners to discharge their duties as Trained Graduate Teachers (TGT) and Primary Teachers (PRT) and to release their pay and allowance. By the Writ Petition No. 9 of 2018 initially 135 nos. of petitioners approached this Court. However, 17 out of 135 petitioners have withdrawn leaving 118 in the fray.

(2.) The facts leading to the present writ petitions are as follows :

(3.) The State-respondents in their affidavit-in-opposition have taken the stand, thatthough, the Chief Minister made an announcement on 21.06.2017 regarding theregularization of SSA teachers having APTET/CTET qualification in a phased manner, suchproposal was not approved by the cabinet. It was also stated that 122 contractual teachers were randomly regularized without holding DPC or without following any procedure and maint-aining seniority. It was also stated in the affidavit-in-opposition, that the criteria suggested by the Director of Elementary Education for regularization of the SSA teachers wasalso not followed and the regularization was made at the behest of the then parliamentary secretary, who prepared and forwarded the list of the candidates for regularization. The parliamentary secretary was not the competent authority and the list was not prepared by theconcerned Education Department. Further contention of the State-respondents was that theregularization was made arbitrarily and therefore, the same was withdrawn immediately withthe direction of the Chief Minister after the matter having been examined by the VigilanceDepartment. It was also stated that the matter was being enquired and an FIR was also lodged for missing of the file pertaining to the regularization of the petitioners which was under investigation.