Lucknow, Sep 22 (PTI) The Allahabad High Court held on Tuesday that assistant teachers working as acting headmasters for prolonged periods are entitled to the salary of a headmaster from the date they assumed the charge.
The Lucknow bench of the court also removed an earlier restriction limiting the payment of arrears to three years preceding the filing of a writ petition.
The bench of Justice Pankaj Bhatia passed the order while disposing of a batch of petitions filed by 1,030 petitioners, including Poonam Rani Varshney.
The petitioners had contended that regular headmasters were not appointed in their respective schools and they were performing the duties of headmasters from different dates. However, they were not being paid the salary of a headmaster.
The court referred to an earlier verdict, in which the right of acting headmasters to receive a salary equivalent to that of a headmaster was recognised. However, relying on the Supreme Court judgment in Union of India Vs Tarsem Singh, the arrears in that case were restricted to three years preceding the filing of the writ petition.
The bench noted that the apex court subsequently considered the issue in Maya Banerjee vs Union of India and held that the approach based on Tarsem Singh could not be sustained in view of the court’s earlier judgment in the case of S K Mastan Bee.
The high court observed that the salary earned for services rendered as an acting headmaster is a valuable right akin to property and held that therefore, there is no basis to restrict the petitioners’ salary arrears to three years.
It clarified that the other directions issued earlier in the Tripurari Dubey case would continue to operate, but the three-year restriction on arrears would no longer apply.
It directed that all the petitioners be paid the salary of a headmaster from the dates they started functioning as acting headmasters till the actual payment or realisation of the dues.
The court also noted that the Uttar Pradesh government had issued orders providing for the payment of salary to in-charge headmasters on par with headmasters.
(PTI News)
