Judgment (Per :Dabholkar, J.)

1. The appeal under Clause 15 of the Letters Patent, impugns the judgment and order passed by learned Single Judge of this High Court on 13.2.2004 in Writ Petition No.3912 of 2000 filed by present Respondent No.1, thereby allowing the same.

2. The factual matrix of the litigation can be described as follows. . Respondent No.1 (henceforth, referred to as "the teacher" for brevity’s sake) was appointed as teacher by present appellant, on 15.6.1987. That appointment was only for one academic year and on temporary basis. She was similarly appointed on temporary basis for the academic years 1988-89 and 1989-90 and she worked (according to the appellants) upto 17.2.1990. It is the claim of the appellant-management (henceforth, "management" for the sake of brevity) that the teacher was again appointed for one academic year, i.e. 1992-93, so also for next academic year 1993-94. Here, the teacher makes a conflicting claim. According to her, she was appointed in the year 1992, on probation for a period of two years. Even the approval granted was for one academic year every time and these appointments as teacher were purely temporary and for a fixed period, which came to an end with the efflux of time. The school was run without any aid from the government till 1993-94 and grants were available since 1994-95. . Upon availability of grants, an advertisement was issued by the management on 9.6.2004 and after selection, the teachers were appointed. The respondent-teacher did not apply in response to the said advertisement. Again fresh advertisement was issued in June 1995 and the teachers were appointed after selection. . In July 1994, the teacher filed appeal before the School Tribunal, Aurangabad, under Section 9 of Maharashtra Employees of Private Schools (Conditions of Service) Regulation Act, 1977 ("MEPS Act" for short), claiming that she was orally terminated with effect from 13.6.1994. The appeal filed by the teacher was dismissed by the Tribunal vide its judgment and order dated 31.7.1999. Even during pendency of appeal before the school tribunal, there was no interim relief in favour of the teacher. . From the narration of facts, as in the judgment of the School Tribunal, it appears that there was unrest amongst the staff and they were complaining of absence of punctuality in payment of salary and there were complaints also of payment of part salary only. It appears that as many as 13 staff members were subjected to enblock oral termination, on 13.6.1994, and 11 of them had approached the School Tribunal and, in fact, by the common judgment dated 31.7.1999, School Tribunal has dismissed appeals of all eleven employees of school. . The teacher in present case, challenged dismissal of appeal by school tribunal, by Writ Petition No.3921 of 2000, which was allowed by the learned Single Judge vide impugned order and rule is made absolute in terms of prayer clauses (A), (C) and (D) of the petition. Consequently, the management is directed to reinstate the teacher with full back wages from 13.6.1994 and continuity in the service. The management is also prevented from terminating her services without following due process of law. Feeling aggrieved by the said judgment, the management is before us by this Letters Patent Appeal. . A copy of common judgment dated 7.9.2001 delivered by another learned Single Judge of this High Court was produced for ready reference during the course of his submissions, by Advocate Shri Kazi for teacher. By the said judgment, Writ Petitions of as many as eight staff members were heard and disposed of together, which had challenged the same judgment dated 31.7.1999 of the School Tribunal and those Writ Petitions were also allowed, by making the rule absolute in terms of prayer clauses (A) and (B), except the relief pertaining to back wages. 03. On reference to the judgment of the School Tribunal, it seems that the learned Member of the Tribunal has taken a note that the applicants we

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