FAKIR UDDIN AHMED Vs. STATE OF ASSAM

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This writ petition is filed by eight petitioners claiming salaries from the respective dates of regularisation of their services in the post of Assistant Teachers of M.E. Madrassas. According to the petitioners, they were initially appointed against the said posts on different dates between 1995 and 1999 in the various Madrassas of Nagaon District under the Operation Black Board (OBB) Scheme, and their services came to be regularised in the years 1998 and 1999. However, they have not been paid their salaries till now. It is surprising to note that though the petitioners claim that their services were regularized, they have not received their salaries till now due to non-retention of posts. The respondent No. 2 in his letter dated 30-8-2003 had forwarded the particulars of the teachers appointed under the OBB Scheme informing the respondent No. 1 that these teachers could not be paid their salaries due to non-retention of their posts. The names of the petitioners were included in that list. The respondent No. 2 by his letter dated 14-11-2005 reminded the respondent No. 1 about the non-receipt of the sanction order for retention of 188 posts including 151 posts in the district Nagaon, which included the names of the petitioners herein, but to no effect. Some twenty Assistant Teachers in the district of Nagaon, allegedly similarly situated with the petitioners, approached this Court in WP(C) No. 2741/2008 claiming payment of salary arrears and their regular monthly salaries. This Court by the judgment dated 31-3-2009 allowed the writ petition by holding that the petitioners therein were entitled to their pay and other service entitlements as due to them in law. It may be noted that one Mazibur Rahman, another teacher of the same district, filed WP(C) No. 1853 of 2002 before this Court claiming similar reliefs. This Court by the order dated 20-8-2009 disposed of the writ petition in terms of the said judgment dated 31-3-2009. According to the petitioners, the respondent authorities thereafter complied with the said order and granted the salary arrears to the said petitioner. As they are also similarly situated, submit the petitioners, they are equally entitled to similar treatment.

(2.) After hearing Mr. D.P. Chaliha, the learned senior counsel for the petitioners, and Mr. N. Sarma, the learned standing counsel for the Education (Elementary) Department, Assam, at some length, I am of the view that the petitioners have come too late in the day to seek the reliefs claimed herein. The Apex Court has time and again frowned upon those litigants who sat on the fence and decided to approach Courts only after some alert and vigilant litigants obtained reliefs. In this context, if any authority needs to be cited, I may cite the case of State of UP v. Arvind Kumar Srivastava, 2015 1 SCC 347, the relevant portions whereof are at paras 22 and 23, which are as follows:

(3.) In the instant case also, the petitioners claimed to have their services regularised in the year 1998 or 1999 (they claim that they had been appointed in the years between 1995 and 1999), yet they admitted that there were no permanent retentions of their posts and they were never paid their salaries. If their services were actually regularized, where is the further need to retain their posts It is also not clear as to whether they ever made any representation to the respondent authorities. They were apparently keeping silent and had decided to acquiesce in the non-regularization their services till the said Mazibur Rahman obtained a favourable order from this Court in WP(C) No. 1853 of 2002. As of today, some 20 years or so have passed since they were denied of their salaries. Some six more years have also gone by after the said Mazibur Rahman obtained a favourable order from this Court after filing the writ petition in 2002. How could the petitioners, who are said to have been denied of their salaries since 1998 or 1999, in their right mind, remain silent for fifteen or sixteen years without taking recourse to legal remedies The petitioners are not uneducated persons, but are teachers. Whether they have ever been given the appointments for the posts of Assistant Teachers or whether their services have actually been regularised are the questions confronting this Court. In my judgment, the very conduct of the petitioners in keeping silent for all these years inevitably warrants the conclusion that their cases are not exactly genuine. Though Arvind Kumar Srivastava was rendered in the context of mass termination of appointments and not about non-payment of salaries, the underlying principle that the cases of litigants, who were not vigilant but were content to be dormant and chose to sit on the fence till somebody else case came to be decided, cannot be considered, will be applicable to the instant case. In this context, I am also tempted to quote hereunder the decision of the Apex Court in Bhoop Singh v. Union of India, 1992 3 SCC 136, the relevant paras whereof read thus: