A single bench of the Tripura High Court headed by Chief Justice AA Kureshi on Friday stood behind more than thousand science stream teachers appointed in the year 2012 and directed the government to award the teachers regular scale within six months of time. The Court also ruled that their outstanding salaries that they were entitled to get after passing the stipulated fixed pay period of five years, senior advocate Purushottam Roy Barman said.
Briefing the media persons after the judgment, he said, a good number of petitions filed with same motive of getting regular pay scale was heard by the Chief Justice of the High Court of Tripura and the Court in its judgment directed the government to pay out the outstanding salary of three years along with arrears to the deprived teachers.
Elaborating on the petitions, he said, “the teachers moved the High Court seeking permanent pay scale for them. In 2012 these teachers were appointed by the education department of the state converting 1,400 regular posts into fixed pay posts. According to the terms and conditions, after a period of five years in fixed pay, the teachers will get all the other benefits along with regular pay scale. But, since July, 2017 the teachers were found fighting for their rights of regular pay scale”.
According to Roy Barman, the state government advanced three points before the Court against regularization of these teachers. Point one, the government informed the Court that some of these teachers had lost their jobs due to another High Court order on Tanmoy Nath case (10,323). In the next point, the government tried to point out the dearth of professional qualifications and in last point, the government said that they were not appointed on a regular pay scale through its submission.
However, the Court rejected the version of the state government and delivered its judgment in favor of the petitioners. “As per the judgment, the outstanding payment, the teachers were entitled to get from 2017 had been directed to be disbursed and all of them ought to be given regular pay scale within the stipulated period of six months. And, the matter of regular pay scale was also granted by the Court”, said advocate Roy Barman.
On being asked on the aspect of professional that was one of the key reasons behind the retrenchment of 10,323 teachers, he said, the NTCE had granted some relaxation for Tripura during the appointment of science teachers and all of them were later trained through a government sponsored special programme so that they could be made eligible for the job they were now in.
According to him, all the affidavits that the state government had filed at different times in connection with the 10,323 teachers were also submitted before the Court during the proceedings of the petitions.