Bombay HC Quashes Lecturer’s Reinstatement Order, Finding Her Three Academic-Year Appointments Were Temporary

Respondent No. 1 was appointed as a Physics lecturer under three appointment orders, each describing her appointment as temporary and limited to an academic year.

The final order stated that the post was reserved for a Scheduled Tribe candidate and that her services would end without notice on expiry of the stated period.

She challenged the termination before the School Tribunal, which allowed her appeal, held that she had attained deemed permanency, and ordered reinstatement with back wages and consequential benefits.

The management challenged that decision by writ petition.

It also pointed to a contrary decision by the same Tribunal Presiding Officer in a companion appeal involving another lecturer appointed on similar terms.

Sections 5(1) and 5(2) of the Maharashtra Employees of Private Schools (Conditions of Service) Regulation Act, 1977 do not prohibit a management from making a contractual or temporary appointment for a limited period against a permanent vacancy; nor do they deem every such appointment to be on probation.

Under the Full Bench ruling in Ramkrishna Chauhan v. Seth D.M. High School, the terms of the appointment letter govern, and there is no presumption of probation or deemed permanency where the letter expressly provides for a temporary, limited-term appointment.

The Court also noted that Ramkrishna Chauhan rejected the relevant exposition in National Education Society’s High School and Junior College v. Mrs. Lulomool Monachary, and that Sanjay Baban Gophane v. Deccan Education Society followed the Full Bench ruling.

Rules 9 and 10 did not displace the management’s power to make such temporary appointments.

The Court found that Respondent No. 1 was not appointed pursuant to the 2009 walk-in-interview advertisement: her first appointment order followed a later application and interview, and none of the three appointment orders provided for probation.

Each specified a temporary appointment for a particular academic year; the final order also identified the reserved category and provided for termination without notice at the end of the term.

Applying Ramkrishna Chauhan, the Court held that the Tribunal could not disregard those express terms or presume probation and deemed permanency.

The Tribunal’s contrary findings were therefore perverse and unsupported by the record.

Although the Court recounted the different outcome in the companion appeal, it expressly declined to determine whether the Tribunal had been pressured or the circumstances surrounding its decision.

It allowed the writ petition, quashed and set aside the Tribunal’s order, and permitted Respondent No. 1 to withdraw the amount deposited by the management, together with any accrued interest.