The Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court has expunged certain observations made by a Single Bench of the court with regard to monitoring the conduct of teachers and salaries paid to the teachers to enforce work discipline in schools.
The court was hearing the appeal preferred by A. Muthu, a government school teacher from Pudukkottai district. A Single Bench had dismissed his petition filed in 2019 seeking service regularisation from 2004 instead of 2006.
While dismissing the petition, the Single Bench observed that the Education Department has to take effective measures to control the conduct of teachers. Whether the teachers perform their duties in accordance with the rules and to the expectation of parents and students.
The decent salary paid to the teachers whether in commensuration with the performance of their duties and hours of duty are to be reviewed by competent authorities for the purpose of enforcing work discipline in schools, the Single Bench observed.
Hearing the appeal, A Division Bench of Justices Paresh Upadhyay and R. Vijayakumar said that the certain observations recorded by the Single Bench were not relevant for deciding the petition. The observations / directions were unwarranted and need to be expunged.
However, the Division Bench observed that the government school teacher filed the petition in 2019 stating that there was a grievance with regard to perceived injustice in 2006. Such a stale claim cannot be entertained, the judges said.
The judges disposing of the appeal observed that the final conclusion of dismissing the writ petition cannot be said to be any error apparent on the face of the record, which may call for any interference in the intra-court appeal.
