HC declines to interfere in teachers' plea against deputation

The Madras High Court today declined to interfere in the deputation of two teachers from Panchayat Union Primary school at Sevalpatty to Panchayat Union Elementary school at Sangampatty in the same district for administrative reasons and interest of students.
The two teachers, S.Arockia Arul Doss and A.Latha Maheswari, who were working in Sevalpatty, submitted that they were in no way connected with a clash between the headmaster of the school and another teacher Ilayaraja, who allegedly consumed sleeping pills and fainted in the classroom on June2.
Police registered an FIR against the headmaster under IPC section 306 (abetment of suicide. But without giving them opportunity,and enquiring them they had been deputed to another school,and it had cast stigma on them.

The petitioners said there could not be any deputation within the same department and it was unknown in service jurisprudence.
Justice S.Vaidhyanathan of the High Court's Madurai bench, dismissing their petition against the deputation order, said the petitioners had been transferred temporarily from the present school to a new place.
A deputation could not be considered as transfer.Even assuming that it was a case of transfer and not deputation, the petitioners' plea could not be accepted.

They had joined the job knowing fully well that the job was transferable. "If the teachers preferred a particular place of posting to work,then they should not have chosen the teaching profession as their services are considered tobe noble,magnanimous and inevitable," the judge said.

The judge expressed dissatisfaction over the manner in which the case had been projected to usurp the original place of posting.The teachers had been diverted with full confidence in order to meet the emergent situation for the welfare of the students,the judge said and dismissed the plea.
"The teachers instead of wasting precious time on litigation, should use their dynamic force in shaping the future destiny of the country, as it is generally said school without a teacher is a body without soul,a skeleton without flesh and blood and a shadow without substance," the judge said.