The main legal point established in the judgment is the requirement for valid justification in treating a post as 'proposed' and the inconsistency in approving subsequent posts while denying the 1st Petitioner's appointment.

JUDGMENT

1. Rule. There is an Affidavit in Reply and an Affidavit in Rejoinder. By consent, Rule is made returnable forthwith and the Petition is taken up for hearing and final disposal.

2. The 1st Petitioner, Minakshi Murtule, is a full-time teacher at the 2nd Petitioner's school at Ichalkaranji in Taluka Hatkanagale in Kolhapur District. Both Ms Murtule and the school challenge an order dtd. 7/12/2020 issued by the 2nd Respondent, the Deputy Director of Education, Kolhapur Region, refusing to approve Ms Murtule's appointment as a full-time teacher of history in the 2nd Petitioner's junior college. Ms Murtule does not seek any preference on the basis of caste. At the head of the Petition, she states that she had always been in the open category. She holds a Masters degree in History and a B.Ed. (History/Hindi). There is no dispute about these qualifications. The 2nd Petitioner is a registered educational trust. It is registered both under the Maharashtra Public Trusts Act 1950 and the Societies Registration Act 1860. It has two schools. The first is the Govindrao High School and Junior College at Ichalkaranji. This junior college has faculties in arts, commerce and science. The second institution is the Shrimant Gangamai Girls High School and Junior College, also at Ichalkaranji. This has classes from Standard V to Standard XII with faculties in arts and commerce.

3. The Govindrao High School and Junior College has three divisions each of Standard XI and XII in the arts stream. There are thus total of six divisions in arts and these are sanctioned to the Govindrao Junior College on an aided basis. The strength of the student body in a college is a factor that determines the number of posts that will be approved. With this student strength, one post of a principal and one post of Vice Principal were sanctioned to the Junior College. Similarly, because there were thus six divisions in the arts stream, there was one sanctioned post of a full-time teacher for History. The workload, another factor, was of six periods of 40 minutes each for each division. This makes a total of 36 periods. The requirement is that a full-time teacher must have a workload of 17.20 clock hours. This is based on an order dtd. 3/1/2011 issued by the 2nd Respondent, the Deputy Director of Education. By that order, he sanctioned a staff schedule for the Govindrao High School and Junior College. This specifically showed the sanctioned post of one principal, one vice principal and one full time post for history for six divisions with a total of 24 clock hours.

4. To the one sanctioned post of full time history teacher, the management appointed one Jaypal Mahadeo Kolhapure with effect from 10/7/1989. He was assigned a workload of 17.2 clock hours. Mr Kolhapure's appointment was approved by the 2nd Respondent, and he was thus permanent. The post of vice principal in Govindrao High School and Junior College was vacant. Mr Kolhapure was the seniormost teacher in the 2nd Petitioner's two schools taken together and he thus came to be promoted as the vice principal of the Govindrao High School and Junior College with effect from 15/6/2011.

5. That appointment was submitted for approval and an approval was received on 1/11/2011 with effect from 15/6/2011.

6. The rules stipulate that a teacher who works as a vice principal is required to only handle a workload of eight clock hours in the subject in question. Consequently, from his assigned workload of 17.2 clock hours as a teacher of History, Mr Kolhapure was allotted eight clock hours. There remained thus 9.20 clock hours unallotted for teaching history.

7. By an order of 22/10/2011, the 2nd Respondent approved the appointment of Mr Kolhapure as a Vice Principal with a workload of eight clock hours. This very order showed the balance workload of 16 clock hours in History and 1.20 clock hours in Environmental Sciences. Thus, two factors came to play. The first was that the post of full-time teacher in History was available