PRABIR CHANDRA BHATTACHARJEE Vs. STATE OF TRIPURA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This bunch of writ petitions being interconnected are disposed of by this common judgment.

(2.) In this writ petition, the petitioner prays for setting aside the letter dated 2.4.2004 (Annexure-XXIX issued by the respondent No. 2 for treating B. Ed. in Physical Education as the qualification for the post of Headmaster of Netaji Subhas Vidyaniketan Higher Secondary school, for quashing the tentative seniority list dated 27.11.2001 (Annexure-XV) and for counting his past service in the Mahatma Gandhi Memorial Higher Secondary school for the purpose of seniority.

(3.) The facts of the case relevant for disposal of this writ petition may be stated. The petitioner was initially appointed on 17.07.1969 as Asstt. Teacher of Mahatma Gandhi Memorial Higher Secondary school, Agartala, which is a privately managed Govt. aided school. His appointment was approved by the respondent No. 2 on 7.10.69. He was there after granted post graduate pay scale w.e.f 17.7.1969, which was subsequently enhanced to Rs. 325-7757-. He obtained B.Ed, degree in the year 1972. Following the change in the pattern of the school education system in 1975, the status of Mahatma Gandhi Memorial Higher Secondary school was reduced to class-X level school while some schools became upgraded to the status of class-XII schools. Netaji Subhas Vidyaniketan was then the only Govt. aided privately managed school which was upgraded to the status of Class-XII, i.e. 10(+2) school. In the process of this change, some of the teachers like the petitioner who were serving in class-XI schools were faced with the prospect of loosing their service. On the other hand, some schools like Netaji Subhas Vidyaniketan, which introduced class-XII system, were found deficient in the number of subject teachers since those schools had recruited teachers for teaching only upto class-XI. Facing imbalance in the teacher-student ratio, the respondent No. 2 by his memorandum dated 17.9.76relaxed the earlier memorandum dated 31.1.76 and allowed the aided schools management to fill up, with his prior approval, the existing vacancies by approved teachers of sister schools who were likely to terminate the services of their teachers. The said memorandum provides therein that in such appointments, the services rendered by a teacher under the previous management shall be treated as approved service provided there is no break and that the initial pay in the new school may be fixed on the basis of the last pay drawn by him in his former school in a similar post subject to the other condition that his pay in his former school was approved by the Directorate of Education.