NEW DELHI, May 13:
The teachers of unaided private schools are entitled to same pay and emoluments as those of Government schools, the Delhi High Court has held.
Rejecting an appeal by a private school, a bench of Acting Chief Justice A K Sikri and Justice Rajiv Sahai Endlaw upheld the single judge’s order directing Rukmini Devi Jaipuria School, Rajpura Road, to pay arrears of salary to its teachers with effect from January one, 1996.
Directing the school to pay the arrears in four weeks, the bench also imposed a cost of Rs 30,000 on it.
The court dismissed the school’s argument that the pay commission recommendations are only applicable to the Government-aided schools and not to private schools.
The court accepted the contention of Ashok Agarwal, the counsel for the teachers, that it’s a travesty of justice that the teachers are denied their lawful salary without any justification.
The court also held that the employees of all unaided recognised private schools are entitled to benefits of pay and emoluments from January 1, 1996, the date the fifth pay commission recommendations became applicable and the schools cannot deny or delay the same on the ground that it could not recover fee from the students.
According to the teachers, they were paid the arrears by the school with effect from April 1997 instead of January 1996.
Their lawyer argued before the court that many private schools are violating the recommendations of the Pay Commissions even though they have collected surplus funds from the students.
“Their audit records show that the private schools have crores of rupees lying as surplus which they collected from the students on the pretext of implementing the Fifth and Sixth Pay Commission,” Agarwal contended.
He submitted that Section 10 of Delhi School Education Act mandates that the employees of all the unaided private recognised schools are entitled to benefit of pay and allowances etc as per the Government school teachers. (PTI)
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