The central legal point established in the judgment is the importance of prompt and appropriate actions by the Education Department to facilitate the appointment process, ensuring compliance with relevant GR provisions and transparency in the selection procedure.

JUDGMENT :

Neela K Gokhale, J.

1. Rule. The Respondents have filed their Affidavit in Reply. By consent of parties, Rule is made returnable forthwith.

2. This is the second round of litigation between the parties inter se. In the first round, this Court by order of 25th February 2021, observing the Respondents’ failure to take any decision regarding approval of the Petitioner’s appointment for more than a year, directed the Respondent-State to take an appropriate decision on the proposal within a period of six weeks from the date of that order. About six months after the expiry of the permitted period, the Respondents refused approval to the Petitioner’s services on the very same grounds considered by this Court in the previous round of proceedings. It is this refusal that is assailed in the present Petition.

3. The 1st Petitioner is an employee of the 3rd Respondent, School run by the 2nd Respondent Managing Trust. The Respondents No. 3 and 4 are, respectively, the Deputy Directors of Education, Pune region and the Education Officer (Secondary), Pune of the 1st Respondent, State of Maharashtra.

4. Provisions of successive Government Resolutions (“GR”) form the basis of relief sought in the matter. It is therefore necessary to note the relevant provisions of the GRs relied upon by both parties, before dealing with the facts in the matter. The GR of 6th February 2012 lays down certain procedures to be followed by all stake holders in matters of appointments, approval, promotions, etc. of teaching and non-teaching employees in government approved and aided primary schools, secondary schools, junior and senior colleges, etc. The procedure entails seeking approval of the Education Department prior to issuance of advertisement, the management providing information including relating to reserved category posts, the latter nominating candidate from the surplus candidates if available, etc. Once permission is given, the Management is to call for applications by issuing advertisements, followed by a selection procedure and finally appoint an eligible candidate on the post. The Department would then consider the proposal of the Management for grant of approval to the employees’ appointment. This entire procedure was set up with a stated object of promoting transparency and to streamline the process of appointments on government posts.

5. Then came the GR dated 2nd May 2012, with a stated object of reconciling the proportion of teachers against the strength of students. This decision was apropos an enquiry initiated into complaints alleging admission and registration of bogus students, poor quality of teaching, managements seeking increase in divisions by misrepresenting the strength of students, appointing unnecessary teaching staff, the name of students appearing multiple times in different registers, amongst other complaints. A slew of decisions in respect of the staffing structure were notified.

6. The third GR dated 7th March 2019 lays down the procedure to fill up the vacancies in the non-teaching staff.

7. The fourth GR, relevant to the facts of the present case is of 20th January 2019. It gives the staffing pattern of junior and senior clerks in educational institutions and specifically provides that institutions having strength of students of 5th to 12th standard to be less than 500 or between 501 and 1000, are sanctioned one post of junior clerk.

8. We have noted the contents of the aforesaid GRs since it is these resolutions that form the basis of conflicting claims.

9. The facts reveal that upon superannuation of a junior clerk, the 2nd Petitioner sought permission to issue an advertisement for appointment of another junior clerk in its school. It was a sanctioned post. The 20th January 2019 GR revised the staffing pattern of non-teaching staff in private aided schools. The Petitioner’s school had a total strength of more than 250 students in the Academic Year 2018–2019 and thus, was entitled one sanctioned post of a junior clerk.

10. D