A Supreme Court bench comprising Justice Uday Umesh Lalit, Justice Binit Sharan and Mohan M.Santana Gourdar heard a bunch of SLPs (Special Leave Petitions) filed by terminated 10,323 ad hoc teachers. The Court reserved its judgment as the final hearing of the petitions concluded on Tuesday.
The petitions moved by retrenched teachers Alak Chakraborty, Manas Bhowmik, Bijay Krishna Saha and Ajay Debbarma, bunched together, came off in the court No-5 as Item No-3 in the supreme court.
A three member bench of the apex court comprising justice Udai Umesh Lalit, Vineet Saran and Mohan M. Santana Gourdar heard the case for almost two hours but reserved their judgment for the time being. A number of senior advocates including Kapil Sibbal, Jaydeep Gupta, Rajiv Dhawan and Colin Gonsalves representing the group of 10,323 teachers led by Bijay Krishna Saha and other clients like teacher-petitioners Alak Chakraborty, Manas Bhowmik, Ajay Debbarma and Pradeep Banik presented long arguments.
They pointed out that the recruitment rules of 2003 of Tripura government, found unconstitutional by the high court of Tripura in its judgment on May 7 2014, had prospective effect except those whose jobs had been challenged but then state government did away with the services of all 10,323 teachers. But in spite of that all other employees including 962 science teachers recruited in 2012 under the same policy are continuing in service, showing a highly discriminatory application of the judgment.
Besides the eminent lawyers of the country pointed out that the state government’s proposal of reappointment to Class III and Class IV posts of the 10,323 teachers would create a deprivation on pay scales and social status. The lawyers argued, given the long experience of the retrenched teachers, in case the court felt that their knowledge and skill should be updated the teachers could very well do so being in service. They stressed that with continued service, the teachers should be given the pay scales that they used to get earlier. Sources among 10,323 teachers currently camping in Delhi said that all the points had been raised and heard and now it was up to the apex court to finally decide and dispose of the matter.
