The Delhi High Court today gave the AAP government six weeks to implement a decision to regularise around 180 Kashmiri migrant teachers who have been working in municipal and government schools on contractual basis for the last 13 years.
If the Delhi government fails to regularise these teachers, then its Principal Secretaries of Education and Services shall be present in the court on the next date of hearing on December 8, said a bench of Justices S Ravindra Bhat and Deepa Sharma.
The bench termed as a "dilatory tactic" the AAP government's move to ask the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) to look into the regularisation of Kashmiri migrant teachers, an issue which has received the assent of its Cabinet in July this year, as well as the endorsement of the Lieutenant Governor (LG) Anil Baijal in August.
The letter to the UPSC was sent by the Directorate of Education of the Delhi government.
The bench frowned upon this step, asking why UPSC's view was sought when it has no say in recruitments for the Delhi government.
It "prima facie appears to be a dilatory tactic," the court said.
The direction of the bench came while hearing the government's appeal challenging a 2015 order of a single judge of the High Court directing regularisation of the Kashmiri migrant teachers employed on contractual basis in government and municipal schools in the national capital since 1994.
The 2015 order of the High Court had come on the plea of the migrant teachers who were seeking equal pay and work benefits as well as regularisation of jobs, after their representations to the Centre and the Delhi government had failed to get them any relief.
While issuing the direction, the single judge had said the difference in pay was substantial.
The court had noted that according to 2015 figures, regular PGT and TGTs in government schools were getting Rs 70,401 and Rs 60,496, respectively, while the migrant teachers in these categories were getting Rs 29,187 and Rs 28,773.
In municipal schools, while regular teachers were in 2015 getting Rs 49,900, the migrant teachers were being paid Rs 25,000, it had said.
The court had also noted that while regular teachers were also given allowances and benefits like 10 per cent of school fees for child education, medical benefit for the entire family, bonus of Rs 3,454 per year, LTC of Rs 1,50,000 above once every four years and two months summer vacation, the Kashmiri migrant teachers were allowed only eight days of casual leave.
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