An aided minority institution does not require any prior permission or approval from the Directorate of Education (DoE) for the appointment of principal, teachers or other employees, the Delhi High Court has held. Justice C Hari Shankar, in a judgement passed on May 28, said an aided minority institution has the absolute right to appoint a person of its choice and the extent of DoE’s regulation is limited to prescribing the qualifications and experience for posts of principal and teacher.
The court’s order was passed on a petition by the Delhi Tamil Education Association which runs seven aided linguistic minority schools in the capital with 6,879 students.
The association, represented by advocate Romy Chacko, approached the court alleging that the DoE was not granting it clearance to fill four vacant posts of principals and 108 posts of teacher, out of 374 sanctioned posts, and also sought a declaration that it does not require clearance of the directorate to fill up the vacant posts.
The petitioner pointed out that Article 30(1) of the Constitution of India guarantees a minority institution the absolute right of establishment and administration.
Ruling in favour of the petitioner, the court said the grant of aid by the State to the minority institution makes no “substantial difference” to the legal position which grants power to such institutions to recruit employees.
The State can, the court said, regulate the proper utilisation of the aid but it cannot subjugate the minority educational institution to its dictates in the matter of appointment of teachers, or principals.
Noting that almost a third of the sanctioned teacher posts in the association’s schools are yet to be filled up, the bench said the Delhi School Education Rules related to recruitment of the head of the school and teacher envisage inclusion of nominees of DoE in the selection committee.
However, these nominees are only “advisors” with no power to vote or actually control the selection of the employee, it added.
“They are, therefore, members of the selection committee merely in form, not in substance. They cannot play any part in the selection of either the teachers or of the principal in the schools run by the aided minority institution. Effectively, the DoE has no control over the appointment of teachers or principals in the aided minority schools run by the petitioner,” the court said.
“Statutorily, therefore, the appointment of any employee in an aided minority school, by the managing committee of the school, does not require the approval of the DoE,” it added.
In view of the legal framework, the court held there was no embargo on the association filling up the vacant posts of principal and teachers in the schools run by it.
It added that as long as the appointed principals and teachers possess the prescribed qualifications and experience, there can be no restriction whatsoever on the right of the petitioner to make appointments to fill in the vacancies in its schools.
“The extent of regulation by the DoE is limited to prescribing qualifications and experience of the Principals and teachers,” it held.
The court rejected the directorate’s objection to only one person working as a common manager in all the ‘managing committees’ of the schools run by the Delhi Tamil Education Association, saying the constitution of committee is also part of the right to establish and administer minority educational institutions, guaranteed by Article 30(1) of the Constitution.
The bench said the fact that one person may be a manager in more than one managing committees is clearly, at the very worst, a curable defect and cannot therefore constitute a legitimate basis to refuse permission to the petitioner to fill in the vacancies.
