Dismissal of teachers without TET stayed High

A vacation bench comprising Justice C V Karthikeyan and Justice Krishnan Ramasamy granted the relief while passing interim orders on an appeal moved by a batch of teachers, who had been terminated for not clearing the Teacher Eligibility Test.

The bench on directing the unsuccessful candidates to write the Teacher Eligibility Test scheduled to be held on June 8 and 9 held that “till then no action should be taken against them”. The vacation bench then posted the matter for further hearing to the second weekof June.

Justice S M Subramaniam who disposed the teachers’ plea on April 30 had held that if the teachers are unable to pass the Teacher Eligibility Test for the past many years, no purpose would be served by granting them further extension.

Based on this, the single judge then directed the authorities to initiate appropriate action under the rules for discharging the teachers by issuing show cause notices after setting out the reasons.

He had also held that the Centre in a letter to the State Education secretary had categorically stated that the time limit for completion of the training programme for in-service elementary teachers is March 31, and hence it would not be possible to extend the deadline.

However, the teachers in their appeal submitted that the authorities had failed to produce the amendment to the Right to Education Act fixing March 31 as the deadline for passing Teacher Eligibility Test. Moreover, the Teachers Recruitment Board at that point of time had not announced the date for the written examination. Hence, in the absence of a date prior to March 31, it would be impossible for them to pass TET before March 31, the appellants had contended.