Seema Devi vs Director, Elementary Education and Others

Kurian Joseph, C.J.—writ petition is filed with the following prayer:

That the termination notice/order Ann-P-3 dated 15.3.2010, may be quashed being arbitrary, illegal and unconstitutional, and the petitioner be held entitled to reinstatement.

In the reply at paras No. 2 and 5, it is stated as follows:

That the contents of this para are admitted to the extent that the petitioner was appointed under the MDM Scheme as cook-cum-helper in Govt. Primary School, Dabhuri, Block Nahan on 1.9.2004 and remained as such w.e.f. 1.9.2004 to 15.3.2010. Thereafter as per Govt. instructions, keeping in view the strength of the students, the concerned committee took a decision to remove the petitioner i.e. Smt. Seema Devi and the respondent No. 3 i.e. Smt. Sudershana Devi, was kept in services being from PDS&OBC family. It is further submitted that as per the clarifications the State Govt. had proposed to reduce the number of MDM workers, depending upon the strength of the students in various schools and it was provided as under:

One cook-cum-helper for schools having upto 25 students, two cook-cum-helper for schools having 26-100 students and one additional cook-cum-helper for every addition upto 100 students.Therefore, the committee concerned has been fully empowered for engaging/rationalizing Mid-day-Meal Workers in the institutions as per instructions.

That in reply to this para it is submitted that as per the information received from the Deputy Director of Elementary Education, Sirmour, the petitioner as well as the respondent No. 3 both were appointed on the same date. Since the Committee concerned has been fully empowered for engaging/rationalizing Mid-Day-Meal Workers in the institutions as per instructions, therefore, the concerned committee took a decision to remove the petitioner i.e. Smt. Seema Devi and the respondent No. 3 i.e. Smt. Sudershana Devi was kept in services being from PDS & OBC family.

In case, the petitioner has still any grievance left, it will be open to her to pursue the same before 1st respondent. However, we make it clear that as and when there is any requirement to engage two persons including the private respondent the petitioner shall be re-engaged in preference to fresh recruit.

With these observations, the writ petition is disposed of, so also the pending application(s) if any.