PRATIMA SETHI Vs. STATE OF HARYANA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Both the writ petitions in CWP No.19298 of 2010 and CWP No.20509 of 2010 are connected. The latter is at the instance of the petitioner, who incidentally is the sister of the petitioner in the former writ petition. In CWP No.20509 of 2010, the complaint is that the advertisement makes a reference for recruitment as 'Headmaster' and leaves out the expression 'Headmistress'.

(2.) In CWP No.19298 of 2010, the principal ground of challenge is that the selected candidate did not have the necessary qualification for being considered for the post since the candidate had not worked as a Master but was only as Hindi teacher. This objection itself need not hold us for long, for, the question of whether a Language teacher, who is a Sanskrit teacher or a Hindi teacher would be included within the expression of "Master" came to be considered in a case before this Court in State of Haryana and another Versus Rajinder Sharma and another in LPA No.726 of 2009, decided on 09.11.2009, when the State was trying to assail the decision taken by a single Judge of this Court that 8 years experience as a Master could not be stated to include the experience as a Sanskrit teacher/Hindi teacher, who had a qualification as a Language teacher as Shashtri/Parbhakar/Giani. The Division Bench held that 8 years experience as a Master teaching different subjects like, Social Studies, Science, Maths, etc. cannot be treated differently from persons, who taught Hindi, Punjabi and Sanskrit and found that Sanskrit teacher and other teachers were in the same pay scale and had the same qualification. The promotion avenue was also common to the higher post. I reject the argument that a Language teacher cannot be treated as a Master and hold the contention to be wholly untenable. The Division Bench went as far as to impose a cost of Rs.25,000/- against the State that opposed an interpretation that the Master with 8 years experience would include a Language teacher with as many as years of experience. I would not, therefore, find the educational qualification as lacking for the selected candidate.

(3.) The petitioner has a still further grievance that in the manner of award of marks, the Management through the Selection Committee committed error in assigning higher marks to the 4 th respondent while considering the educational qualifications on various heads. The counsel would refer to the fact that in terms of the criteria laid down by the State Government for sanctioned post in Government aided schools in Haryana State, there was no basis for awarding marks for M.Ed. independently of the marks given for M.A., M.Sc. or M.Com. No specific higher marks could be awarded for M.Ed. qualification. The award of higher marks given to the 4 th respondent for M.Ed. qualification was, therefore, unjustified. The learned counsel would further argue that the maximum marks that could be assigned for interview was only 20 marks in terms of the Government instructions but the 4 th respondent has been awarded 22 marks in the interview, that is, more marks than could be assigned for this purpose. It is further contended that in the norms for selection, the Selection Committee had made a provision for 5 marks for extra curricular activities. She had participated in NCC and additional marks must have been given as provided in the Government instructions while detailing several extra curricular activities that included NCC as well. If additional 2 marks were to have been given to the petitioner that would have made the difference and the petitioner would have secured more marks than the 4 th respondent.