JAKIR HUSSAIN LASKAR Vs. STATE OF ASSAM

JUDGEMENT

(1.) ANOTHER dispute concerning the inter -se seniority of school teachers is once again confronting this Court in this writ petition for adjudication. At the outset, it may be noted that the petitioner has abandoned his claim against the respondent No. 8, the issue raised by him in respect of this respondent, therefore, does not survive for consideration.

(2.) THE case of the petitioner is that he was appointed as Persian Assistant Teacher of S.A. Choudhury Model Girls' High School ("the school" for short) by the Managing Committee of the school (SMC) in terms of the appointment letter dated 30.4.2003: he joined the post on 2.5.2003. According to him, due to the resignation of the incumbent Assistant Teacher, the SMC by the order dated 2.8.2003 adjusted him against the said resultant vacancy whereafter he has been discharging his duties till now to the satisfaction of all concerned. His appointment as Assistant Teacher of the school was approved by the jurisdictional Inspector of Schools by the office order dated 14.11.2005. In the course of his service, the SMC held a general meeting of the school on 28.12.2009 and passed resolution No. 2 for preparing the list of staff of the school and authorized the Headmaster of the school to approach the jurisdictional Inspector of Schools to approve the list so prepared. In this list of staff, the name of the petitioner found a place as Assistant Teacher of the school in Serial no. 9, whereas the name of the respondent No. 7 did not find a place therein as staff of the school. The said staff pattern as prepared by the SMC was approved by the jurisdictional Inspector of Schools vide his order dated 30.3.2011, but the name of the respondent No. 7 did not find any place in that staff pattern and, rightly so, as she was never a staff of the school at that time.

(3.) IN the year 2005, the Education Department introduced a policy decision to extend financial assistance to various pre -provincialized schools from lower primary to college level. Recently by the notification dated 12.1.2011, the Government of Assam modified this policy decision by deciding to pay fixed remuneration to the employees of these categories of venture institutions and directed the head of the institutions including the Headmaster of the school to submit the staff pattern. In the wake of this new policy, according to the petitioner, the Headmaster of the school (respondent 6) manipulated the records by preparing a new list of staff of the School dated 6.7.2011 by including the name of respondent 7 as the Assistant Headmistress of the school by falsely indicating her date of joining as 31.12.2005 and by degrading him (the petitioner), who is the senior most Assistant Teacher of the school. In this process, the position of the petitioner was correspondingly reduced to the status of the 5th Assistant Teacher below the respondent No. 8, who consequently became the 4th Assistant Teacher. Again, the respondent No. 6 with reference to the Assam Venture Educational Institutions (Provincialization of Services) Act, 2011 ("the Act" for short") submitted the staff pattern of the school dated 19.12.2011 to the Director of Secondary Education, Assam (respondent No. 2) by including the name of the respondent No. 7 as the Assistant Headmistress of the school by indicating her initial date of joining the school as 10.6.2006 in the post of Classical Teacher (Persian). The position of the petitioner was thus reduced to 5th Assistant Teacher below the respondent No. 8, who joined the post with the petitioner on the same day: the petitioner joined at 10 AM while the respondent No. 8 joined later on thereby making him junior to the petitioner.