DAYA CHAND MASTER GOVERNMENT MIDDLE SCHOOL KARMAN DISTRICT FARIDKOT AND OTHERS Vs. STATE OF HARYANA AND ANOTHER

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The writ petition has been filed at the instance of several Masters in various schools within the State of Haryana claiming that in the matter of promotion as Headmaster/Headmistress, the ratio between the male and female as Headmaster/Headmistress respectively is 67:33. According to the petitioners, it is far below than the actual ratio of the schools for boys and girls and in the existing state of affairs, a female teacher as Mistress joining later to a male teacher as a Master gets an accelerated scope for promotion as a Headmistress by the lopsided reservation of 33% of the posts to Mistresses. The State has not filed a reply so far although the writ petition has been as early as in the year 1988.

(2.) In a slightly different situation, a Division Bench of this Court in Neelam Rani Vs. State of Punjab and others,2010 1 SCT 587 was considering the issue of whether there could be a valid rule creating a separate cadre for male Masters, Lecturers and Headmasters exclusively, the Bench held that the classification itself was not proper and was violative of Article 16. While not accepting the previous appointments already made, the Court laid down the following principles:-

(3.) While for posts meant for selection on the basis of merit, men cannot claim any specific percentage on reservation to be made, the converse is not always true. The Constitution itself provides through Article 15(3), while dealing with prohibition of discrimination on grounds of religion, race, caste, sex or place of birth, that nothing in the Article shall prevent the State from making any special provision for women and children. Consequently, if the State had allowed for a reservation of 33% posts to be occupied by females as Headmistresses, the male Masters cannot claim that percentage must have a bearing to the actual ratio of schools for boys and girls. The challenge contained in the writ petition itself is against the constitutional scheme and cannot be countenanced. The issue of percentage for teaching posts on reservation for women is not an unchartered territory. In Rajesh Kumar Gupta Vs. State of Uttar Pradesh, 2005 AIR(SC) 2540, the impugned Government order provided that the teachers for primary schools would be recruited from candidates, who had undertaken the State Government's sponsored State Teacher Training Programme. It provided that 50% of the selected candidates would be females and the rest shall be males. The condition was challenged on the ground that it violated Article 15(1) and Article 14 and that the discrimination had been practiced only on the ground of sexes. The Hon'ble Supreme Court upheld the Government order, resting the decision on the basis of Article 15(3). It is still open to doubt that 50% reservation for male was justified, for it would mean a discrimination on the basis of sex alone but the Court did not enter upon that question. In any event, the point is that a reservation of seats upto 50% women was perfectly possible under the scheme of Constitution.