J. Sherly vs The State of Kerala, The Assistant Educational Officer, The Manager Sndsyup School and The District Educational Officer

Ramachandran Nair, J.—The petitioner is Head Mistress of a U.P.School. She is suspended by the Manager on various charges including failure / delay in hoisting National Flag and conducting Republic Day celebration in the School. Suspension was for 15 days beyond which even though the Manager requested the AEO for approval of continuation of suspension, he declined to grant it. Consequently, the Manager approached the Government with a revision petition against the AEO''s order and the Government vide Ext.P14 order directed the DEO to complete the enquiry, and in the meantime, the petitioner''s suspension was allowed to be continued. It is against this order, the petitioner has approached this Court with the WP(C) challenging the Government order.

Even though the learned Single Judge declined to interfere with the Government order, the Division Bench in the Writ Appeal filed against the said order permitted the appellant/petitioner to continue as Head Mistress. As of now, the petitioner is continuing as Head Mistress.

Shri. S. Subhash Chand, learned counsel appearing for the 3rd respondent explained the nature of allegations against the petitioner and submitted that suspension is on valid grounds and it will not be desirable to allow the petitioner to continue as Head Mistress while enquiry is conducted. However, petitioner''s case is that she is the senior most teacher with more than 26 years of service and as Head Mistress for 4 years. She has denied all allegations levelled against her as motivated because according to the petitioner, the Manager wanted to substitute her with another person. We do not think there is any need to go into the correctness or otherwise of the allegations levelled against the petitioner because enquiry in any case has to be conducted by the 4th respondent (DEO) in terms of the Government order. Of course, since the DEO is authorised to conduct enquiry by the Government, the approval, if any, required has to be given by the Dy. Director of Education. However, we feel there is no need to keep the petitioner out of service for the DEO to conduct enquiry on the allegations levelled against the petitioner. The petitioner will be allowed to continue as Headmistress.

We, accordingly, dispose of the WP(C) with direction to the 4th respondent to complete the enquiry and submit report to the Manager at the earliest, at any rate, within three weeks from the date of receipt of a copy of this judgment. If the DEO is on long leave, we feel the Dy. Director should engage another DEO for conducting enquiry. Based on report of enquiry the Management can consider disciplinary action against the petitioner only if it is called for.