A Division Bench of the Delhi High Court recently set aside a single judge’s order directing private schools in the national capital to implement the recommendations of the sixth and seventh Central Pay Commissions (CPC) and pay their teaching and non-teaching employees the mandated salary and other benefits [Renu Arora and Others v St Margaret Senior Secondary School and Anr + Connected matters]. 

The bench of Justices Subramonium Prasad and Vimal Kumar Yadav noted that schools’ arguments about teachers’ eligibility to claim benefit as per the recommendations of the CPC, their mode of appointment, and the rights of schools to increase their fee went unnoticed in the single-judge’s judgment of November 2023. 

“In the opinion of this Court, these issues were raised before the learned Single Judge but the same have not been referred to in the impugned Judgment,” the Court noted. 

The Division Bench also disagreed with the single-judge’s decision to constitute committees to deal with the issues of fee hike and payment of salaries to teachers, as well as to decide which teachers are eligible for pay as per the CPC recommendations. 

This amounts to relegating the judicial function to the committees, the Bench said. 

“Judicial functions cannot be relegated to these Committees. What the learned Single Judge has done is that he has conferred upon the Committees the judicial power to decide the entitlement/claim of teachers by considering their claims and the objections raised by the Schools. Furthermore, there is no representative of the teachers in the Committee. At best, the learned Single Judge could have formed these Committees to furnish a report to the Court and then the Court ought to have adjudicated upon the issues raised by the teachers and the schools without giving the Committees the power to decide the issues.”

Therefore, the Court set aside the judgment and remanded the matter back to the roster bench for fresh adjudication. 

The order under challenge was passed by single-judge Justice Chandra Dhari Singh on November 17, 2023 after several teachers of various unaided schools moved the court seeking salaries, arrears and retirement benefits as per government pay commission norms

In his judgement, Justice Singh held that that employees of the private schools have a vested right to be paid the salaries and emoluments as per the recommendations of the pay commissions, and schools cannot cite lack of funds to deny these benefits to their staff.

No school can seek a waiver of the recommendations by citing any reason whatsoever, Justice Singh had underscored.

Justice Singh made it clear that even the unaided minority schools must pay the salaries and other benefits to their employees as per the recommendations of the pay commissions.

The order was challenged in an appeal by both the teachers and the private schools. While the teachers challenged the portion of the order by which their claims were relegated to be decided by the committees, the schools said that their right to fix a fee commensurate with their expenses was not considered by the judge. 

After considering the case, the Division Bench found fault with the single-judge’s order and set it aside. 

[Read Judgment]