HC seeks reply from Centre, BSF on Polytechnic STS employees' plea for regularisation

The Delhi High Court has asked the Centre and the BSF to respond to a plea by 30 employees of Polytechnic, Signal Training School who have sought regularisation of their services so that they can be relocated to other centres following the closure the branch in the capital.

A bench of Justice Vipin Sanghi and Rajnish Bhatnagar issued notice to the Ministry of Home Affairs, BSF Director General, BSF Education Fund and BSF Polytechnic, Signal Training School (STS), on two limited prayers in the petition.

It said that in the meantime, considering that the 30 petitioners have been serving the authorities in the polytechnic institutes for long years, they may explore the possibility of accommodating them in the other institutes being run by BSF.

The court asked the authorities for file their responses on the petition and listed the matter for further hearing on July 9.

The petitioners are presently working as teaching and non-teaching staff in the institute which is situated in Tigri in south Delhi.

The petitioners, represented through advocates Alakh Alok Srivastava and Chandan Kumar Singh, initially challenged a March decision of the 49th GBM which stated that no fresh admission in any of the streams for academic year 2018-19 onwards will be made at BSF Polytechnic STS Tigri and BSF IT Bangalore.

They said that effectively by this communication, the authorities have sought to direct closure of the Tigri institute, which would lead to consequential termination of services of the petitioners.

During the recent hearing, the petitioner's counsel did not press for these two prayers which were dismissed by the court.

The petitioners said they are entitled to regularisation considering the long periods of service that they have been serving the respondents for.

They added that as an alternative, if the closing down of the institute is inevitable, the authorities be directed to relocate or transfer the petitioners to the other BSF Polytechnic Institute situated at Tekanpur (Gwalior) at matching posts.

As per the petition, the idea behind the establishment of the institute was that most of the BSF personnel are deployed in difficult terrains of the far flung border areas and they are not in a position to provide quality education to their children at their places of postings, which sometimes causes mental trauma to them.

To resolve this problem, the institute has been established to impart quality technical education to the children of the serving as well as deceased BSF personnel.

The institute is being run, managed and funded by the BSF through its education fund, namely, BSF Education Fund.