Dinesh Kumar Negi vs State Of H.P. & Others

Ajay Mohan Goel, J

By way of this petition, the petitioner has prayed for the following reliefs:-

“a) That Writ of Mandamus may be issued directing the Respondents to release the grant-in-Aid in favour of the petitioner w.e.f. the date of his initial appointment i.e. July, 2017 till date with all consequential benefits with interest on the basis of notification Annexure P-8.

b) The respondents may further be directed to release the benefit on the basis of judgment passed by this Hon’ble Court in CWP 2467/2015 in case title Villam Singh versus State of H.P. decided on 07.04.2016 further upheld by Division Bench in LPA No.53/2018 and finally upheld by Hon’ble Supreme Court on 09.08.2019.”

The case of the petitioner is that he was appointed as a P.G.T. History in Government Senior Secondary School, Darkali, Tehsil Rampur, District Shimla, H.P. by the School Management Committee (SMC) in terms of Annexure P-4, dated 28.06.2017. The grievance of the petitioner is that he has not been paid the Grant-in-Aid for imparting education to the students.

The stand of the respondents is that appointment of the petitioner by the SMC of the school concerned was not in-consonance with the provisions of the SMC Policy notified on 17.07.2012, as amended from time to time. Further, as per the respondents, the presence of the petitioner was marked in the school in the year 2018 only for 5 days and in the year 2019 only for 2 days in terms of the documents provided by the petitioner. On a query put to learned counsel for the petitioner, he informed the Court that the petitioner is no more serving in the school concerned.

A perusal of the rejoinder demonstrates that in rebuttal to the averments made in the reply mentioned hereinabove, all that is mentioned is that the Principal of the school was not allowing the petitioner to mark his presence so as to not release the Grand-in-Aid in his favour.

In the considered view of this Court, in the present case there are seriously disputed questions of fact involved. Incindently, when this Writ Petition was filed by the petitioner in the month of September, 2019, no averment was made in the Writ Petition that despite the fact that petitioner was regularly attending the school and imparting education, the Principal was not allowing him to mark his presence.

Therefore, now in light of the stand of the respondents taken by them in their reply, that the petitioner served for only 5 days in the year 2018 and 2 days in the year 2019, this Court is not in a position to grant any relief to the petitioner because in the considered view of this Court, the petitioner will have to substantiate by leading cogent evidence that he indeed imparted education in the school for substantive time so as to entitle him for the relief of Grant-in-Aid.

Accordingly, this petition is dismissed, but with liberty to the petitioner to invoke such remedy as is available to him as per law. In the event of any such remedy being invoked by the petitioner, the time spent by him while pursuing this remedy be taken into consideration while calculating the period of limitation. Pending miscellaneous applications, if any, also stand disposed of accordingly.