Once Teacher Is Appointed To Sanctioned Post In Aided School, Govt Cannot Refuse Approval Citing Fall In Student Strength: Madras High Court

Justice R Subramanian and Justice K Govindarajan Thilakavadi further noted that while deciding the number of teachers to be appointed, what has to be looked into is the number of sections and groups in the school and not the number of students.

Fixation of staffs' strength is based on the number of sections and groups and not on the number of students...respondent school is offering four groups in aided section...Therefore, there have to be eight sections, four in XI Standard and four in XII Standard. Each section of students will have to be given atleast four hours of lecture in Tamil per week. That means the number of lecturing hours in Tamil would be 32 hours, which is essentially more than the 24 hours fixed for P.G. teachers in Tamil. Therefore, there has to be two P.G. teachers in Tamil in the respondent school.

In the present case, two P.G. Assistant teachers in Tamil were appointed by the respondent school after vacancy arose following retirement and transfer. When the school sought for approval of the appointments, the District Educational Officer (DEO) refused the same. It stated that students' strength did not require two P.G. teachers in Tamil.

The department calculated that there was a total of 270 students in XI and XII standards which would require only 28 hours of teaching per week at 4 periods per section consisting of 40 students. Since the duration of 1 period is 45 months, the 28 periods will translate to 21 teaching hours which is less than 24 hours. Hence, according to the department, one PG teacher was sufficient.

This rejection was challenged by the school by way of a writ. The school challenged the manner in which staff fixation was done and submitted that once an appointment was made to a sanctioned post, the government could not refuse it. The government had to grant approval and thereafter deploy the teacher in a school where there was vacancy.

Though the government justified the manner in which the staff fixation was done, the court sided with the school and directed the authority to approve the appointments.

On appeal, the State submitted that there were already enough surplus teachers who were yet to be re-deployed. It was submitted that granting further approvals would only result in loss to the exchequer. It was also submitted that students' strength could not be a determining factor for deciding the staff strength.

However, relying on a GO, the school submitted that as far as higher secondary classes are concerned for two groups of study, there should be one P.G. Assistant in Tamil. The school offered four groups in aided section, of which one is vocational group. Thus, there are at least three regular groups which meant that two PG teachers were necessary.

The court found the single judges order justified and refused to interfere. It further directed the government to grant approval and sanction all financial benefits within a period of 12 weeks.

Case Title: State of Tamil Nadu and others v. The Correspondent

Citation: 2023 LiveLaw (Mad) 68