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Synopsis

The Delhi High Court has stayed an order that had directed the government to set up a high-powered committee to supervise the implementation of recommendations and guidelines of the sixth and seventh Central Pay Commissions dealing with salaries and arrears to the staff of private unaided schools and recognised private unaided minority schools here.

A bench of Acting Chief Justice Manmohan and Justice Mini Pushkarna stayed certain paragraphs in the judgment passed by a single judge bench and issued notice to the Delhi government and several private schools on the appeal filed by some of the staff members of the schools.

"Till further orders, there shall be a stay of paragraphs 200, 204 and 205 of the impugned judgment and order," it said.

It also stayed the single judge's direction that the committee shall be constituted at central and zonal levels and also that the Directorate of Education (DoE) shall issue a notification within two weeks for the purpose of convening a zonal committee, wherein various stakeholders, including teaching and non-teaching staff of several schools, who are aggrieved by the non-implementation of the pay commission recommendations, shall file their claim.

The schools’ staff, represented through Advocates Ashok Agarwal and Kumar Utkarsh, submitted that there was no justification for sending their case to the proposed committees as the DoE has already passed orders.

“The constitution of committees is beyond the powers of a writ court under the Constitution. The committees constituted are more or less an adjudicatory body with powers to decide the fees and conclude that the school is not in a position to pay the 6th and 7th CPC. Secondly, it has given the powers to declare the appointment of any teacher as illegal,” the counsel said.

According to him, such committees in law can only be created by legislation and not in the manner as has been done by a single judge’s judgment, and that the committees are unnecessary and unworkable.

The court listed the appeals for further hearing on January 15, 2024.

Notably, on November 17, the court directed the Delhi government to constitute a high-powered committee to supervise the implementation of recommendations and guidelines of the sixth and seventh Central Pay Commission (CPC) dealing with salaries and arrears to staff of private unaided schools and recognized private unaided minority schools.

Terming education as “an invincible weapon” for empowering the next generation, the bench of Justice Chandra Dhari Singh said that the regulating authority has to exercise certain control to ensure that a uniform quality of education is provided to every student in the country.

“Education is an invincible weapon for empowering the next generation of the nation, and … regulating authority has to exercise certain control to ensure that uniform quality of education is provided to every student of the country. The aspect of autonomy in administration of an unaided or aided school, therefore, does not come into play since the state has to ensure that there is quality education provided to the children. Hence, the unaided minority schools are bound by certain regulations of the appropriate authority", it said.

Case Title: Renu Arora and Others v. St. Margaret Senior Secondary School & Anr.