SC says no to regularise contractual teachers in Bihar

The Supreme Court on Friday refused to regularise nearly four lakh contractual teachers in Bihar while setting aside the Patna High Court order that had ruled that contractual teachers in government schools were entitled to salary at par with regular permanent teachers working in various government schools in Bihar.

A bench of Justices Abhay Manohar Sapre and Uday Umesh Lalit allowed Bihar government's plea challenging Patna High Court's order dated October 31, 2017 on equal pay for equal work to thousands of school teachers hired on contract in the state.

The court said that it the decision of the state government to maintain different identities of these two cadres-- government and contractual teachers -- was not found objectionable and further there could be inter se distinctions between these two cadres.

The court observed that there has been no violation of the rights of the contractual teachers nor has there been any discrimination against them.

"We do not find that the efforts on part of the state government could be labelled as unfair or discriminatory. Consequently, the submissions as to how the funds could and ought to be generated and what would be the burden on the state government and the Central government, do not arise for consideration," the court said.

The court noted that the pay structure given to the niyojit (contractual) teachers was definitely lower than what was given to government teachers but the number of government teachers was considerably lower than the number of 'niyojit' teachers.

The court noted that currently there are just about 66,000 government teachers in the state as against nearly 4 lakh 'niyojit' teachers.

There is scope for further appointment of about 1 lakh teachers which could mean that as against 5 lakh teachers the number of State Teachers would progressively be going down.

Appreciating the Bihar government for making great strides in the last decade, the court said the government has achieved the objectives of having schools in every neighbourhood.

--IANS

ak/prs