Date:10/07/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/07/10/stories/2008071057310100.htm

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Appointment of teachers upheld

Mohamed Imranullah S.

They were recruited on a consolidated pay between 2003 and 2004

MADURAI: The Madras High Court on Wednesday upheld the validity of a Government Order through which 40,000 school teachers were recruited between 2003 and 2004 on a consolidated pay, instead of on regular time scale of pay, for five years.

Dismissing a batch of forty four writ petitions, filed in 2005 by school teachers across the State, through a common judgement, a Division Bench of Justice Elipe Dharma Rao and Justice K. Suguna said that financial crisis faced by the Government was a valid ground to impose such restrictions on employment.

Pursuant to the filing of the writ petitions, the Government on June 27, 2006 inducted all the teachers appointed on consolidated pay into regular time scale of pay.

However, the petitioners insisted on according the benefit from the date of their appointments in 2003 and 2004. Advocate General G. Masilamani said the Government might have to face a financial burden of Rs.1,440 crore, if the relief as sought for by the petitioners’ was acceded to. He also pointed out that the Government had sympathetically implemented time scale pay even before the expiry of five years.

Pat

Writing the judgement for the Bench, Mr. Justice Rao said: “This action of the Government needs to be appreciated… ”

The principle of ‘equal pay for equal work’ would not apply in the present case as the Government had issued another G.O. on June 1, 2004 prescribing lesser work load for the teachers appointed on consolidated pay than those drawing regular time scale of pay.

If the Government aided schools had extracted more work from the petitioners, the latter should have sought appropriate legal remedy, the Judges said.