Long service and prior irregular regularizations do not entitle untrained teachers to absorption or pay parity.

The petitioner was appointed as an Assistant Teacher at Project Girls High School, Patan, in 1982 and served as an untrained teacher.

A State resolution dated 25 April 2018 provided for recognition of service on sanctioned posts subject to prescribed qualification and cut-off-date requirements.

The petitioner sought the salary scale applicable to untrained teachers, consequential pay revisions, and pension fixation. At the hearing, he confined his claim to that relief and did not pursue his challenge to the validity of the resolution’s cut-off-date clause.

Whether the petitioner, whose service had not been absorbed, was entitled to the salary scale claimed for untrained teachers and consequential pay and pension benefits.

Whether the petitioner could claim equivalent benefits on the basis that other untrained teachers had previously been regularized or granted benefits.

Resolution No. 1272 dated 25 April 2018, read with Resolution No. 3123 dated 22 November 2023, governed service recognition for the relevant project schools; under the 2018 resolution, recognition depended on the stated qualification and cut-off-date criteria.

Relying on Project Uchcha Vidyalaya Shikshak Sangh v. State of Bihar, 2000 (1) PLJR 287, the Court noted that the relevant qualification cut-off was tied to the Screening Committee report.

The Division Bench ruling in State of Jharkhand v. Bal Mohan Prasad, L.P.A. No. 138 of 2019, held that prolonged service does not cure a lack of essential eligibility and that Article 14 does not provide “negative equality” or entitle a person to benefits granted unlawfully to others.

The Court also accepted that the 6 October 2012 communication was not an approved State policy capable of overriding the 2018 resolution.

The petitioner’s appointment in 1982 and continued service did not establish entitlement to the claimed pay scale because his service had not been absorbed.

The Court treated the applicable State policy and the Division Bench’s ruling as controlling: a teacher who did not meet the required eligibility conditions could not obtain absorption or consequential pay benefits merely through prolonged service. Nor could prior regularizations or the 2012 communication support the claim, since Article 14 does not require repetition of an allegedly unlawful benefit and the communication was not an approved policy decision.

The writ petition was dismissed, and any pending interlocutory application was disposed of.