BAL MOHAN PRASAD Vs. STATE OF JHARKHAND

JUDGEMENT

(1.) As common question is involved in all these writ petitions, they have been taken up together and are decided by this common order. These batch of cases relate to Teaching and Non-Teaching Staff of Project Girls' High Schools. The petitioners herein mainly seek appropriate directions to the concerned authorities to recognize/ regularize their services by the Government following the take-over of the private schools where the petitioners had been working and are discharging their duties or have retired after attaining the age of retirement.

(2.) The petitioners, before this Court, in the present matters, are teaching and nonteaching staff of different Project Girls High Schools (now falling within the territorial jurisdiction of Jharkhand), which were opened and selected as second phase schools of the state government scheme of 1981 and these petitioners have prayed for absorption of their services and further for making payment of consequential benefits and arrears of salary w.e.f. 01.01.1989. These petitioners have been performing their duties since last 30 years against vacant and sanctioned posts, without any salary, in anticipation of their due absorption in regular establishment and hence have moved this court for redressal of their grievances, when no action was taken on part of the Respondent state. These Project Schools had been created under the Scheme launched by the then State of Bihar for the purpose of enhancement of literacy in poverty stricken and illiterate areas of the State. 'Project Schools' are the name given to the Schools established by the Government under the Scheme aimed at providing in each block of the State, at least four Secondary/ High Schools out of which one must be a 'Girls' School'. These schools, as per the

(3.) Before dealing with the issues involved, it is important to give a brief history of the matter. The issues involved have been continuously litigated over a period of almost three decades, before Honourable Patna High Court, as also before Honourable Apex Court and several other matters have also been decided by the coordinate Benches of this Honourable Court in different cases which were preferred by similarly situated litigants individually. The brief fact, as can be culled out gathered from the pleadings made in the writ petitions and submissions made by the learned counsels of both the sides, is summarized as under:-