The central legal point established in the judgment is that the Management's failure to fulfill its responsibilities under the MEPS Act and Rules led to substantial lapses in the selection procedure, and the Education Department cannot be faulted for the chaos created by the Management.

JUDGMENT :

Neela Gokhale, J.

1. Rule. The 2nd Respondent has filed its Affidavit in Reply. By consent of parties, rule is made returnable forthwith.

2. The Petitioner is an employee of the 4th Respondent Junior College run by the 3rd Respondent Educational Trust. The 2nd Respondent is the Deputy Director of Education of the 1st Respondent, State of Maharashtra.

3. The case has a chequered history and has suffered previous rounds of litigation in this very Court. The Petitioner was first appointed as a full time Chemistry Teacher in the 4th Respondent Junior College on an ad hoc basis and in the unaided division for the year 2013-2014. Thereafter, responding to an advertisement dated 19th June 2015 published in newspaper, “Daily Loksatta”, the Petitioner applied for the post of Chemistry Teacher in the same college. Following a selection procedure, the Petitioner was issued an appointment letter as full time Chemistry Teacher on a temporary basis from 1st July 2015 to 7th November 2015 on the payment of a consolidated monthly salary of Rs.10,000/-.

4. The Petitioner’s contract was renewed annually with breaks of few days in between successive appointments. This continued till 30th April 2018. Tenure appointment letters have been placed on record. The Petitioner discharged her work regularly which included discharging the duties in the classes of Std. 11 and 12 of the Junior College, working as an examiner for the H.S.C examination conducted by the state and other such work ordinarily performed by full time permanent teachers of an educational institution. Despite this, her services were not made permanent as the Management failed to submit the necessary proposal to the Education Department for approval of the Petitioner’s services.

5. The Petitioner filed Writ Petition No.5251 of 2019 in this Court seeking directions to the Management to send a proposal for approval of the Petitioner’s services to the State Education Department and further direct the Education Department to grant approval to their appointment and release grant-in-aid for payment of salary to the teachers. During the pendency of the Writ Petition, the Management terminated the Petitioner’s services leading to this Court passing protective orders restraining the Management from filling up the posts occupied by the Petitioner and paying salary to the Petitioner, etc.

6. There were other similarly placed teachers of the same college suffering similar fate and they too filed separate Writ Petitions in this Court seeking similar relief. In its Order of 22nd February 2022, this Court made specific observations such as firstly, even though the appointment letters indicate the appointment to be purely on temporary basis, for all practical purposes, the appointment was treated by the Management as regular and permanent appointment; secondly, the Pavitra Portal had no application to the Petitioner’s appointment, it being made in the year 2015, i.e., prior to the introduction of the Pavitra Portal; and thirdly, the ban on recruitment also had no application since the appointment was that of a science subject, which was an exception to the general ban on recruitment. Thus, this Court directed the Management to submit a proposal for approval of the Petitioner’s services to the Education Department within a period of four weeks from the date of that order and further directed the Education Department to decide the proposal at the earliest. The Management was also directed to pay differential salary to the Petitioner within a specified time.

7. The Management thereafter submitted the proposal. However on 12th May 2022, the proposal was rejected by the Education Department on the grounds that the provisions of Government Resolution (“GR”) dated 23rd June 2017 pertaining to making appointment via Pavitra Portal was contravened, the procedure provided under Section 5 of the Maharashtra Employees of Private Schools (Conditions of Services) Regulation Act, 1977 (“MEPS Act”) pertaining to