Minority educational institutions have the right to administer their own affairs, including the selection of the Head Mistress, under Article 30 of the Constitution of India, but the Director of School Education has the power to intervene in the selection process if there is an absence of proper publicity or an improperly constituted selection committee.

I.P.MUKERJI, J.

1. THE length of pendency of this writ application together with non implementation of the order passed by the director of School Education West Bengal dated 12.10.1999/ 13.10.1999 passed pursuant to the Division Bench judgment of this court in MAT No. 2746 of 1997 dated 08.08., have given rise to some rights in favour of the writ petitioner which were otherwise not available. I do not understand why this order dated 12.10.1999/13.10.1999 was not carried out although there was no stay of the order in this writ application. The school involved in this matter is Scots Mission Girls High School, Kurseong, Darjeeling. (for short the school) . This school is aided by the Government of West Bengal. In 1997 it was in the process of recruiting a Head Mistress for the school. It prepared a panel. By virtue of that panel the present Teacher-in-Charge being the writ petitioner No.1 would have been appointed the Head Mistress.

2. A writ was preferred by an interested person by the name of Indira Thapa being the respondent No.5. That writ petition was numbered W.P. No. 12520 (W) of 1997. She alleged that there was irregularity in the preparation of this panel, for the reason of inadequate publication and lack of proper notice of the selection process. On 8th August 1997 that writ application was disposed of by this court with an order that the respondent No. 5 would be considered for appointment. An appeal was preferred from that order by the writ petitioners herein being MAT No. 2746 of 1997 before the Division Bench of this court. This appeal was disposed of by a judgment and order dated 4th March 1999 asking the director of School Education to reconsider the matter. During the course of hearing of this writ application the memorandum of appeal in that appeal was placed before me. I have examined it. I find that the appeal was confined to the issue of advertisement and adequate notice and some peripheral issues. The director of School Education passed an order dated 12.10.1999/ 13.10.1999. This is an extremely well reasoned order, although it is the subject matter of challenge in this writ application. For very compelling reasons disclosed in that order the Director of School Education has come to the conclusion that the selection committee which prepared the panel was not properly constituted and the notification of recruitment was not proper. It directed the school authority to prepare a fresh panel after constituting a fresh selection committee.

If the facts stood as they were on 12th October 1999 I would have not interfered with this order at all. But for reasons best known to the Government of West Bengal this order was not implemented, although there was no stay whatsoever of its implementation.

3. AS this order has not been implemented, the present petitioner No.1 has continued to operate as Teacher-in-Charge of the school for more than 10 years, functioning defacto like the Head Mistress. No affidavit in opposition has been filed by the state respondent. The aspirant for this post Indira Thapa being the respondent No. 5 has filed an affidavit and has been represented by counsel at the hearing. At the hearing the state has not even appeared.

4. A new point has been taken which was not even urged at any stage before hearing of the writ application. The learned counsel for the writ petitioner has produced a declaration of the National Commission for Minority Educational Institutions Government of India dated 4th June, 2009 that the school managed by the church of North India Trust Association, New Delhi is a minority educational institution within the meaning of the National Commission for Minority Educational Institutions Act 2004. It is said that by virtue of this declaration or notification the school has acquired the power to constitute its own selection committee with whosoever it likes and recommend any name it feels like to be Head Mistress. The director of School Education has no say in the matter.

It