AMARCHAND Vs. STATE OF RAJASTHAN

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Appellant Amarchand who is a Senior Teacher in the Govt. Higher Secondary School, Motikatla, Jaipur filed a writ petition before this Court challenging the vires of the Schedule appended to the Rajasthan Educational Service Rules, 1970, namely, the entry in column 5 against item (i) of Group 'F' whereby the teachers in Grade II.......... have been placed at par with the Senior Teachers for the purposes of promotion to the post of the Head Masters/Head Mistresses of the Secondary Schools, as violative of Articles 14 and 16 of the Constitution of India. The learned Single Judge, after hearing both the parties, partly allowed the writ petition. He rejected the plea of discrimination in the matters of selection to the post of Head Master from two sources namely, the Senior Teachers and the Teachers Grade II, but he directed the respondents to prepare a common seniority list of the Senior Teachers and the Teachers Grade II and others on a just and fair basis before proceeding to make promotions to the Rajasthan Educational Service from the members of the Rajasthan Educational Subordinate Service. Both the petitioners as well as the Government preferred an appeal before this Court against this judgment of the learned Single Judge. A similar writ petition filed by one Devisingh was pending before the Single Judge, but as the same questions of law and fact were involved in that petition, it was tagged with these appeals As the question of validity of the Rules was involved, a Special Bench of 5 Judges was constituted under Article 228A(3) of the Constitution and it is in this manner that these three matters came up for hearing before us. The main grievance of the petitioner Amarchand is that by amending the Rajasthan Educational Service Rules, 1970, the Government have opened a channel for the promotion to the post of Head Master/Head Mistress of Secondary Schools -50% by direct recruitment and 50% by promotion. The Rules provided that promotion to the post of a Head Master shall take place from the Senior Teachers as well as from the Teachers Grade II in the ratio of 1:4. The grievance of the petitioner was that these two sources viz. the Senior Teachers and Teachers Grade II, which are not equally placed, cannot be clubbed together for the recruitment to the pot of Head Master/Head Mistress of Secondary Schools by promotion. The contention of the petitioner is that by adopting this procedure the unequals are treated as equals which offended the provisions of Articles 14 and 16 of the Constitution.

(2.) The Government did not accept this contention of the petitioners and came out with a plea that by recruiting to the post of Head Master from the two sources namely, Senior Teachers and the Teachers Grade II, it cannot be said that unequals are being made equals. According to the Govt., in many other Services recruitment is made from various sources which are not in all respects equal to each other and, therefore, the question of offending Article 14 does not at all arise.

(3.) The learned Single Judge, while dealing with this question, came to the conclusion that taking Head Mister from the two sources namely, Senior Teachers and the Teachers Grade II, though their salaries & xxxx grades are different, cannot be said to be treating unequals as equals. It is open for the Government to create the channel of recruitment in a manner which may open opportunities to various employees who are otherwise eligible to be appointed to the post for which selection is being made and, therefore, the learned Single Judge rejected the plea of the petitioner that clubbing Senior Teachers with Teachers Grade II for the purpose of recruitment of 50% quota for the post of Head Master by promotion in any manner offends Article 14 of the Constitution.