PRAMOD KUMAR YADAV Vs. STATE OF BIHAR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The State has been grappling with the twin issues; of providing standard education to the school going children, and appointment & continuance of the teachers, which issues are inextricably linked with each other and hence, inevitably jinxed by reason of the appointments carried out unscrupulously and on fraudulent certificates. The State has experimented with different modes of selection of teachers; many of which failed, and from its long experience has come out with two new rules, both with the avowed object of maintaining high standard of education; one, by ensuring selection through a written examination, of trained qualified hands and the other, for augmenting the skills of those continuing, by requiring them to undergo a test, with offer of better facilities on qualifying the same. The State walks a tightrope insofar as maintaining an equilibrium in providing such quality education, at the same time ensuring that the present crop of teachers do not loose their livelihood. One of such enactments dealing with the existing Niyojit Teachers, the Bihar School Exclusive Teachers Rules, 2023 (for brevity 'Exclusive Teachers Rules-2023'), is challenged as ultra vires, incompetent and having been enacted within an occupied field; ie: occupied by the existing rules regulating the appointment and service of teachers.

(2.) Shri Y.V.Giri, learned Senior Counsel appearing for the petitioners, who are Panchayat Teachers (alternatively called 'Niyojit'), pointed out that all the petitioners are persons having qualifications for teaching in elementary, secondary and higher secondary schools, as prescribed by the National Council of Teacher Education (for brevity 'NCTE'). They were appointed under the Bihar Panchayat Primary Teacher (Appointment and Service Conditions) Rules, 2006 (for short 'Primary Teacher Rules2006') and later were regulated by the Bihar Panchayat Teachers Rules, 2012 (for brevity 'Panchayat Teachers Rules-2012'). Some of them were Shiksha Mitras appointed prior to 2006 who were absorbed as Niyojit Teachers under the Primary Teacher Rules-2006. When the Panchayat Teachers Rules-2012 came into force, all the teachers in place were required to sit for an examination to test their competence and only those who qualified in the test were given a regular pay scale and increments, as per Rule 15B. Only teachers who qualified were continued, on establishing their competence, and it is urged that these teachers cannot now be put through the rigmarole of another competency test, when they have already established their competence.

(3.) Then came the Bihar Panchayat Elementary School Service (Appointment, Promotion, Transfer, Disciplinary Proceeding and Service Condition) Rules, 2020 (for brevity, 'Local Bodies Rules-2020'). There was a dispute between the Government teachers and the Niyojit Teachers, the former of whom though discharging identical duties were getting a better pay and emoluments. The matter was taken up to the Hon'ble Supreme Court, which rejected the claim of equality at par with the government teachers, as raised, in State of Bihar & Ors. v. Bihar Secondary Teachers Struggle Committee Munger & Ors.; (2019) 18 SCC 301. The specific contention taken by the government before the Hon'ble Supreme Court was that the government teachers were a vanishing class and that the State Government had improved the working conditions of the Niyojit Teachers and they cannot be treated at par with the government teachers. While continuing under the Local Bodies Rules-2020, the present rules of Exclusive Teachers Rules,2023 came into force, wherein there is a further selection mandated by appearing in a competence test. It is asserted that the Niyojit teachers proved themselves when the Panchayat Teachers Rules-2012 came into force and there is no question of periodic & recurrent testing of competence. It is argued that the rules now promulgated are in violation of Article 20; since it brings in discrimination insofar as creating two classes of teachers within the same schools. The object of the rule itself is to deny equivalent benefits to the Niyojit Teachers. Reliance is placed on State of Punjab v. Jagjit Singh, (2017) 1 SCC 148. We have to immediately notice that in Struggle Committee (supra), Jagjit Singh (supra) was held to have not taken into account the earlier decisions of the Hon'ble Supreme Court (sic-para100).