IMPORTANT POINT
Salary – Leave encashment is part of salary – In present case, management establishment was recipient of 70% aid, in form of grant – State cannot shrug its responsibility to shoulder its part of responsibility to pay appellants share of leave encashment benefits.

JUDGMENT :

S. RAVINDRA BHAT, J.

1. Special leave granted. With consent of counsel for the parties, the appeal was heard finally. The appeal is directed against a judgment and order of the Rajasthan High Court, Jaipur Bench¹ [Dated 26th April 2019 in SBWMA No. 357/2017] dismissing the appellants application, seeking enforcement of this court’s previous judgment. ² [Order dated 19th July 2016 in Civil Appeal No 6601-6603 of 2016].

2. The appellants were appointed against sanctioned posts by the fourth respondent (a senior secondary school, established and controlled by the fifth respondent trust, hereafter referred to collectively as the “establishment”) in 1993. They continued to work uninterruptedly in that establishment on a regular basis. The establishment was recipient of grant-in-aid from the State of Rajasthan (hereafter “State”). By a unilateral resolution dated 5th November 2008, the managing committee of the establishment decided to discontinue receipt of grant-in-aid from the State with effect from 1st April 2008. Accordingly, the State by an order dated 28th December 2012 ceased to grant aid with effect from 1st March 2012.

3. In the meanwhile, the State had framed and brought into force the Rajasthan Voluntary Rural Education Service Rules, 2010 (hereafter “2010 Rules”) with the objective of providing security to the employees working in aided institutions, and to absorb them in the State’s service. The appellants sought their absorption with the State in accordance with the rules, by unavailingly representing in this regard. Finally, they were driven to file writ petitions before the High Court. The State had, pursuant to the rules framed by it, absorbed other employees and teachers from aided institutions, but denied this benefit to the appellants.

4. The appellants writ petitions were clubbed with several other petitions and disposed of by the High Court, refusing to direct the State to absorb these employees. The employees, including the appellants, unsuccessfully sought review of those orders; which was rejected on 29th November 2013. The appellants thereafter approached this court by petitions for special leave to appeal questioning the orders of the High Court.

5. By its final order of 19th of July 2016, this court set aside the denial of absorption of the appellants. The court directed as follows:

“....We are therefore convinced that the said eleven teachers having been in the service of the school management in the aided posts and were in receipt of such aid from the state government, right from the date of their entry into service till the aid came to be discontinued in 2008, only at the instance of the school management, which has now been restored pursuant to the orders of this court, the state government can be directed to pass necessary orders for their absorption applying the 2010 rules as from the date such rules came into effect. We therefore set aside the orders denying such absorption and remit the matter back to the respondent number one-state government to consider the claim of the eleven aided teachers for their absorption as from the date when the 2010 rules came into effect and such orders shall be passed within one month from the date of receipt of a copy of this order.

After passing such orders of absorption, it is needless to state that whatever salary that fell due and payable to the said eleven teachers for the past period i.e. from 23.3.2008 shall be restored in the manner such aid is to be granted prior to the coming into force of the 2010 rules. In other words, such aid is to be sanctioned to an extent of 70% and 30% to be borne by the school management, such calculation shall be made and the extent to which aid is to be sanctioned shall be granted up to the date by which the order of absorption is passed on thereafter the full salary payable for an absorbed teacher in the state service shall also be calculated and sanctioned by respondent No 1/state government.

On such orders being passed,