New Delhi: In a fillip to the autonomy of
government-aided minority schools in the city, the Delhi High
Court has said that they cannot be forced to absorb surplus
teachers and employees of others schools.
The Delhi School Education rules empowering government to
direct the schools funded by it to absorb extra staff of other
schools is not applicable to the minority schools, said a
bench of justices S Ravindra Bhat and GP Mittal.
Delivering its verdict on a batch of petitions by some
government-aided minority schools, the high court bench said
government`s act of directing a minority school to employ
surplus staff of other institutions would be an "imposition"
on it.
"When those personnel are deployed by the administration
on an unwilling (if not protesting) minority institution, it
becomes an imposition, robbing the school or institution its
choice to pick its personnel, guaranteed by the Constitution,"
said the ruling.
"Therefore, it is held that Rules 47 and 64 (1) (e) of
Delhi School Education Act are inapplicable, to the extent
that an unwilling school cannot be directed to accept such
teachers or employees," the court said.
The bench also held that government-aided minority
schools do not fall within the ambit of government`s power to
appoint one of its officials in recruitment panel of aided
schools to oversee the appointment of teachers and other
staffers and interfere with their decisions.
The court, however, clarified that the managements of
aided minority schools have to adhere to the recruitment rules
and other general norms on issues of qualification, age,
experience and other such criteria for appointment of their
staffers and teachers.
Its decision came on the plea of the schools to restrain
government from imposing its decision on them to employ
some staff.
The Constitution has guaranteed autonomy to the minority
schools and the government has no right to intervene with
certain decisions of the school including the recruitment of
staff, the schools had asserted.
PTI
