MADURAI
The Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court, while hearing a case of a schoolteacher who sought a direction for transfer to his native place in Kanniyakumari district, directed the authorities concerned to consider the plea on merit.
Justice S. Vaidyanathan observed that the job of a teacher was equivalent to that of a sculptor who, with his profuse efficiency, shapes a material like stone or wood. Teachers could not have vested interest and could not choose a particular place of work. They should be prepared to work in any school, the court said while giving suggestions to the government to incorporate certain measures with regard to handling surplus teachers in schools.
The court directed the authorities concerned to assess the average strength of students and thereafter decide deployment of teachers as per guidelines issued time and again on or before September 30 of every academic year.
The assessment report should be forwarded to the competent higher authority in the State on or before October 31. The competent authority should then identify the schools where surplus teachers were deployed and transfer them to such schools in need of faculty and the exercise should be completed before December 31 of every academic year.
The teacher should then join the deployed school on or before the commencement of the successive academic year. With regard to schools run by management, the group of schools under the management should be considered as one unit and the same process be exercised, the court said.
The Bench said those teachers who would attain the age of superannuation in the middle of the academic year need no be provided with academic work so that students were not affected and instead they could be posted on administrative side till the date of superannuation for that year.
The court directed the government to look into the suggestions and if they were to be issued as a Government Order, then it should take effect from 2019-20. It was open for the government to incorporate conditions in the interest of the student community, the court said.
