Point of Law : Reasoning given by the Deputy Director, Elementary Education, Assam for not provincialising the Joneswari ME School that the school did not have the NUEPA DISE Code for the year 2009-2010 or prior would be unacceptable.

JUDGMENT :

Heard Mr. M Khan, learned counsel for the petitioner. Also heard Mr. A Phukan, learned counsel for the respondents no. 1, 2, 3 and 6 being the authorities under the Elementary Education Department, Government of Assam, Mr. B Choudhury, learned counsel for the respondent no. 4 being the authorities under the SSA, Assam and Ms. D D Barman, learned Additional Senior Government Advocate for the respondent no. 5 being the Deputy Commissioner, Kamrup(M).

2. The petitioner Joneswari ME School was subjected to the process for provincialisation under the Assam Education (Provincialisation of Services of Teachers and Re-Organisation of Educational Institutions) Act, 2017 (in short, the Act of 2017) and the District Scrutiny Committee, Kamrup(M) had recommended for its provincialisation. In the recommendation of the District Scrutiny Committee, the DISE Code of the school was recorded as 11017113. Inpsite of such recommendation, the provincialisation was rejected as per the order of the Deputy Director, Elementary Education, Assam, which is available as Annexure-12, page-37 to the writ petition. The reason recorded in the order of Deputy Director for not provincialising the services of the teachers of the petitioner school is as extracted as below:

“(a) DISE related (“DISE Code” means District Information System for Education Code prepared by the SSA, Assam and as available in the record of National University of Education Planning & Administration, (NUEPA), New Delhi). As per the decision of the Joint Committee constituted by the Govt. vide Notification No. PMA.162/2019/600-A dated 18/03/2019 vide Minutes dated 24/07/2020. The M.D., SSA, Assam was requested to verify the DISE data. Accordingly, the SSA, Assam provided the DISE data to this Directorate.

(i) Not having NUEPA DISE Code of the school for the year 2009-10 or prior to that as per clause 3 (3) of the Act 2017.”

3. A reading of the reason provided by the Deputy Director makes it discernable that the provincialisation was refused inasmuch as NUEPA DISE Code of the school for the year 20092010 or prior was not available. The School reports Card of 2009-2010 which are available in the website of SSA shows the school Code to be 18061101713. The search result in respect of Joneswari ME School also shows the school code to 18061101713.

4. Having taken note of the school code appearing in the website of the SSA, we have noticed that the DISE Code that was recorded by the District Scrutiny Committee while recommending the petitioner school was erroneous to the extent that the District Scrutiny Committee had recorded it to be 11017113 whereas as per the school code available in the website of the SAA it ought to have been 1101713. In other words, inadvertently there was one ‘1’ recorded in excess by the District Scrutiny Committee. It being so, we have to consider the reason for rejecting the provincialisation of the petitioner school in the background of the aforesaid inadvertent mistake on the part of the District Scrutiny Committee.

5. Accordingly, we required the view of the SSA authorities on the aforesaid issue. The SSA authorities have produced a para-wise comment on the issue which is extracted as below:

“3. The school – ‘Joneswari MES’ bearing DISE code 18061101713 was found in DISE database from 2006-07 to 2010-11 against undivided Kamrup District which was found against Kamrup(Metro) from 2011-12 onwards to2013-14 as DISE code 18271101713. The change of four digit district code 1806 of Kamrup to 1827 of Kamrup (Metro) may kindly be seen by comparing the two DISE code 18061101713 and 18271101713. The school code 18271101713 is again changed to 18271100633 due to re-organization of Wards in 2014-15 and continuing till 2020-21. The year wise report found in the DISE database since 2006-07 to 2020-2021 is enclosed at ‘Annexure-I’.”

6. Further the year wise status of the Joneswari ME School as per the DISE database is also provided which shows the UDISE Code of the school to b