Bombay HC comes to rescue of teacher wrongfully sacked 15 years ago

Bombay High Court has ordered the educational institution to pay pension to the teacher. File pic

The Bombay High Court recently came to the rescue of a teacher who had challenged his termination from a private school in Maval, Pune, way back in 2007, for alleged wrongdoings. The high court set aside the termination order as it was not serious enough to warrant removal from service and ordered the educational institution to pay pension to the teacher.

The petitioner was appointed on April 27, 1994 as an assistant teacher by the Vidya Prasarini Sabha, Pune. In January 2006, at the last school where the teacher had served for seven years, he was accused of misconduct and an explanation was sought from him. Though the teacher had sought time and certified copies of the charges and documents to file his reply, the school administration went ahead and constituted an enquiry committee. The teacher was accused of 27 charges which among other things included failure to complete the results of a class, incorrect evaluation of an examination answer paper of a student and insubordination with respect to examination related work and making baseless allegations against colleagues.

The enquiry committee in its report held some of the charges as proved. The management on February 24, 2007 terminated the services of the teacher with effect from March 1, 2007. The teacher had approached the school tribunal which on May 7, 2008, turned down his plea challenging the termination of his service. After his plea was dismissed by the tribunal, the teacher challenged the order before the high court in 2008. As the petition lingered in the high court for many years the teacher decided to change his lawyer and approached Panchal with a request to represent him. Panchal took over the case in September 2022. The final hearing was held on December 1, 2023 and the judgment was passed recently.

Justice Sandeep Marne of the high court appeared to agree with advocate Panchal's contention that the penalty of termination is grossly disproportionate to the misconduct alleged and proved. The court, after going through the charges leveled against the Petitioner, stated: "I do not find that any of the 27 charges leveled against him were serious enough to entail extreme penalty of termination."

Justice Marne observed in his judgment that the termination had not only resulted in the termination of job, but also pension and pensionary benefits. "It also appears that some efforts were made to declare petitioner as surplus with a view to ensure that he is absorbed in some other school. Therefore, it appears that the school management was not in favour of continuing services of petitioner and this appears to be the reason why extreme penalty of termination is imposed in respect of non-serious charges leveled against petitioner. Therefore, some interference by this Court would be warranted in the area of proportionality of penalty," Justice Marne wrote in his judgment.

"The high court quashed both orders and directed that the petitioner's services shall be counted for the purposes of pension and pensionary benefits. Thus the petitioner would be entitled to pension, gratuity, provident fund and encashment of leave, etc. However, the petitioner will not get any backwages," said Panchal.