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Judgment
A.N. Varma, J.—This petition is directed against an order dated 3rd July, 1980 purporting to terminate the services of the Petitioner as an Assistant Teacher in Manohar Bhushan Inter College, Bareilly. The order has been passed in pursuance of a resolution dated 30.6.80 passed by the Managing Committee of the Respondent college which states that the Petitioner''s appointment being contrary to the procedure laid down for selection of teachers u/s 16F of the Intermediate Education Act, the same was liable to be ignored and no approval of the District Inspector of Schools for terminating the appointment of the Petitioner was required u/s 16G(3) of the said Act The contention of. the Petitioner is that the impugned resolution as well as the order passed in pursuance thereto are both manifestly unsustainable in law. He has accordingly prayed for quashing of the same.
The relevant facts are that the Petitioner was appointed on temporary basis under a letter issued to him on 02.01.74 by the Manager of the institution stating that the Petitioner was being appointed in pursuance of the interview held by the Principal and on the basis of the approval of the District Inspector of Schools on a temporary basis as a Science teacher. This letter was closely followed by another letter dated 11.04.74, stating that in supersession of the previous letter dated 2.01.74, the Petitioner''s appointment was being converted into one on probation for one year with effect from 2.01.74 in view of the resolution of the Managing Committee dated 24.03.74 and approval of the District Inspector of Schools dated 11.04.74. Subsequently at the meeting of Managing Committee dated 15.12.74, the Petitioner was confirmed in the said post with effect from 02.01.75. The Petitioner thereafter continued to function uninterruptedly as an Assistant Teacher for nearly six and half years until the impugned resolution was passed.
The only ground for terminating the services of the Petitioner, as stated in the resolution dated 30.06.80 referred to above, is that the appointment was made without following the procedure laid down in regulations framed in Section 16F of the Intermediate Education Act. No other ground has been stated in the said resolution.
The contention of the Petitioner is that even if it be assumed that the Petitioner''s appointment was not strictly in accordance with the procedure laid down for regular appointments through the selection committee, his appointment, both one on 02.01.74 and other on 11.04.74 could be treated to be a temporary appointment as contemplated by the first proviso to Section 16F(1) (as it then stood).
For convenience sake, the relevant part of Section 16F, as it stood in 1974, is being reproduced here:
16F(I) Subject to the provisions hereinafter specified, no person shall be appointed as a Principal, Headmaster or teacher in a recognized institution unless he
(a) possesses the prescribed qualifications or has been exempted Under Sub-section (1) of Section 16E;
(b) has been recommended by Selection Committee constituted under Sub-section (2) or (3), as the case may, of the said section and approved, in the case of Principal or Headmaster by the Regional Deputy Director Education, and in the case of a teacher by the Inspector:
Provided that if the Inspector is satisfied that for any institution no candidate, who possesses all the prescribed qualifications, is available for appointment he may permit the institution to employ as a temporary measure any suitable person for a period not exceeding one year. Such period may be extended with the prior approval of the Inspector".
The first appointment was, as mentioned above a temporary appointment made with the approval of the District Inspector of Schools. Before the same came to an end, another letter of appointment was issued to the Petitioner on 11.04.74 after obtaining the approval of the District Inspector of Schools. This again can be traced to the first proviso to Section 16F, though it could not result into a substantive appointment in view of the fact that the procedure laid down u/s 16F (I) was not followed. Be that as it may, the Petitioner was admittedly working as a teacher continuously in virtue of orders dated 02.01.74 (Annexure-4 to the writ petition) and 11.04.74 (Annexure 1 to the writ petition) until the passing of the impugned order. Even if, therefore, the second appointment could not be legally treated as a substantive appointment, it could, in any case, be deemed as temporary appointment having received the approval of the District Inspector of Schools vide order dated 11.04.74.
Counsel for the Respondents, however, relied on Arya Kanga Pathshala v. Smt. Manorma Devi Agnihotri 1971 ALJ 983 in which a Division Bench of this Court held that an appointment made in breach of provisions of Section 16F(1) would be no appointment in the eye of law. That decision, however, lends no support as it was not concerned with the implications of the first proviso to Section 16F(1) which authorised making of temporary appointment with the approval of the District Inspector of Schools. The approval accorded by the District Inspector of Schools by his order dated 11-4-74- would certainly be treated as an approval to the Petitioner''s appointment at least on a temporary basis. This appointment of the Petitioner also received the approval of the Committee of Management vide its resolution dated 15.12.74, referred to above, when the Petitioner was confirmed.
The effect of the Petitioner''s continuing on a temporary basis right from 02.01.74 till the coming into force of Uttar Pradesh Secondary Education (Removal of Difficulties) Fifth Order, 1976 which provides that where any person was appointed by the Committee of Management as a teacher on or before June 30, 1975 for any period as a temporary measure with the approval or permission of the Inspector and such person has worked thereafter upto November 15, 1976, he shall be deemed to have been appointed in a substantive capacity, would be that the Petitioner''s temporary appointment matured into a substantive appointment. That being so, the Petitioner''s services could not be terminated except with the approval of the District Inspector of Schools as required by Section 16G(3).
Learned Counsel for the Respondent Committee of Management, however, vehemently contended that the Petitioner''s appointment being in contravention of Section 16F(1) of the Act, it would be deemed to be void and ineffective in law and could be terminated without the approval required u/s 16G(3) as held in the case of Arya Kanya Pathshala v. Smt. Manorma Devi Agnihotri (supra).
We have already made our comments on this decision and it is not necessary to repeat them here. As mentioned above, even if the said appoint ment could not be treated as a substantive appointment, the same would certainly be effective as an appointment on temporary basis covered by the first proviso to Section 16F(1) and in view of the provisions of the Fifth Removal of Difficulties Order, the temporary nature of the appointment matured into a substantive appointment.
Learned Counsel for the Respondents also made an attempt to submit that the resolution dated 15.12.76 appointing the Petitioner was based on wrong facts and the approval of the District Inspector of Schools was also obtained on incorrect facts. In our opinion, we cannot go into this controversy after a lapse of more than six years. The minutes of the meeting of the Committee of Management cannot be the subject of review by this Court under Article 226 of the Constitution. If the minutes were not correctly recorded, it was open to the members of the committee to seek annulment/modification of the resolution at the subsequent meetings. No such attempt was made by the management within a reasonable period. It is too late in the day to raise such an objection.
In the result, the petition succeeds and is allowed. The impugned order dated 03.07.80, terminating the services of the Petitioner (Annexure-IV to the writ petition) is quashed. The parties shall, however, bear their on costs.