Ram Sumer Kumar and Others vs The State of Bihar and Others

Navaniti Prasad Singh

In CWJC No. 10222 of 2000, the two petitioners are Assistant Teachers in Kashyap Gangadayal Sanskrit High School, Pandey Chawani, Sikaria, district - Bhojpur. In CWJC No. 9620 of 2001, the two petitioners are Assistant Teachers in M K P Sanskrit Primary -cum- Middle School, Kataibozh, district - Bhojpur.

The petitioners have filed these writ applications for a mandamus to the respondent-State and the Sanskrit Shiksha Board to pay their salaries. The facts and reliefs in both the writ applications are identical.

The said schools were receiving grant-in-aid from the Government through the Sanskrit Shiksha Board. In 1989, pursuant to an Ordinance issued by the State Government, these two schools were also taken over by the Government. In the Ordinance, a Manak Mandal was provided for staffing pattern. It was, inter alia, provided that Teachers, as per the Manak Mandal, would be treated as Government Teachers and paid accordingly. The petitioners had earlier been recruited on posts sanctioned by the Government but apparently fell outside the Manak Mandal. The Ordinance was then subsequently reenacted but then allowed to lapse without being made into an Act. Vide Memo No. 1056 dated 21.12.1995, the State Government issued a letter that when Ordinances were promulgated and Manak Mandal settled then all other posts, which had earlier been sanctioned, automatically were cancelled.

This Court, on earlier occasion, had examined this position. This Court had held that what the Ordinance did was it only provided a Manak Mandal and provided that Teachers falling within the Manak Mandal would be treated on par with Government Teachers. It did not intend to nor did it in fact cancel other sanctioned posts in excess of the Manak Mandal. This Court, in the case of Deo Shankar Jha Vs. The State of Bihar and Others has already held, following the judgment of Division Bench, this letter being Memo No. 1056 dated 21.12.1995 to be a dead letter.

That being so, in my view, there is no other impediment in paying the salaries to these petitioners. Neither their schools have been derecognized nor sanction of their posts cancelled nor their payments ever been found to be bad or illegal for any reason. To the contrary, their appointments have duly been approved by the State Government.

In that view of the matter, I have no option but to hold that withholding the payment of salary to the petitioners is not permissible nor correct in law nor in fact.

I, therefore, in view of the aforesaid, direct the State Government through Special Director (Secondary Education), Government of Bihar, Patna to ensure payment of full salary and remuneration to the petitioners within three months of production of a copy of this order before him. The writ petition, accordingly, is allowed.