Early Times Report
Jammu, Nov 17: A high court division bench of Chief Justice N Paul Vasanthakumar and Justice Tashi Rabstan today held that ReT teachers can be transferred from one school to another.
This significant judgment has been passed in a bunch of LPAs in which petitioners submitted that they were initially engaged as ReT teachers under Rehbar-e-Taleem scheme and on completion of five years of service, they were regularised as General Line teachers.
Once they became General Line teachers, the statue, namely the Jammu and Kashmir School Education Subordinate Services Rules, is applicable to them and they are entitled to be treated at par with other permanent government teachers and their service conditions are to be regulated by the J&K Civil Service (Classification, control and appeal) Rules, 1956.
As per Rule 27 of the above said 1956 Rules an employee including a teacher serving in the Education Department, is required to be transferred from one place to another on the post and cadre on which he is borne in and there cannot be any separate rule providing separate provision for transfer of teachers on the basis of their entry into service. As per the Jammu and Kashmir Education Subordinate Service Rules, a teacher is entitled to be transferred anywhere in the district against the post of a teacher.
The bench, after hearing a battery of lawyers, observed that it was evident that respondents could not treat the petitioners, who were regularized as General Line Teachers on their satisfactory completion of five years service as Rehbar-e-Taleem, differently. "Thus, circulars and transfer orders stating that the petitioners are repatriated to the schools where they served as Rehbar-e-Taleem are erroneous and unsustainable," the court said.
Earlier, the advocate general submitted that the petitioners were transferred to schools where there was no teacher for administrative exigency taking note of the interests of the students and even assuming that they were not to be repatriated.
Admittedly, on regularization, the petitioners had become teachers in the cadre and they were subject to transfer within the district in terms of Rule 27 of the Jammu & Kashmir (Classification, Control and Appeal) Rules, 1956 or any transfer policy, the court said and added, "Thus, they cannot oppose their transfer within the district."
The counsels appearing for the petitioners also argued that the schools where petitioners had been transferred were closed now due to want of students, as such they could not be asked to serve in a school where there was no student. The advocate general replied to the said submission that the students in some of the schools were adjusted in nearby schools for want of teachers and the department will sent back the students to the earlier schools so as to enable the teachers now posted in such schools to serve there.
The court said the petitioners who had been transferred to the schools where there was no student available and if students were admitted in nearby schools were not sent back to the schools, where they were transferred and posted, it was open for them to make a representation before the concerned Chief Education Officer to post them in any other school and if any such representation was submitted, it would be considered by the CEO within two weeks from the date of receipt of such representation.
The bench made it clear that if the schools where some of the petitioners were transferred and posted were not having any student, due to which they could not join, they would be paid salary for the entire period till they were accommodated in other schools or provision was made to serve in those schools by sending back the students. (JNF) |
