Provincialisation of services must consider actual fulfillment of criteria over technical compliance, allowing for the affirmation of continuous service despite absent DISE data.

Judgment :

Arun Dev Choudhury, J.

1. The present Intra-court appeal is filed against the impugned judgment and order (oral) dated 01.12.2023, passed by the learned Single Judge in WP(C) No.6147/2022.

2. The respondents had challenged the orders dated 29.09.2015, 07.07.2022 and 25.07.2022 passed by the Director of Elementary Education, Assam and the Mission Director, Samagra Siksha, Assam, respectively, by which the claim for the provincialisation of the respondents was rejected.

3. The learned Single Judge interfered with the decision and directed that the petitioners would be entitled to provincialisation under the Assam Venture Educational Institutions (Provincialisation of Services) Act, 2011, and, consequently, held that they would be entitled to salaries for the said period.

4. By the orders impugned in the writ petition, the provincialisation of services of the petitioners was rejected on the ground that the school, where the petitioners were working did not have appropriate DISE data for the year 2009-2010, inasmuch as in terms of the Section 3 (1)(xii) of the Assam Education (Provincialisation of Services of Teachers and Re- Organization of Educational Institutions) Act, 2017, (in short, the Act, 2017), provides that for the purpose provincialisation, the enrollment shall be verified with the data as per DISE code for the year 2009-2010 or before as may be available in records of the National University of Educational Planning and Administration.

5. Section 3(1)(xii) of the Act, 2017 is quoted herein below.

“The enrolment shall be verified with the data as per DISE Code 2009- 2010 or, before as available in the records of the National University of Educational Planning and Administration, New Delhi. There shall be physical verification of students and checking of records of attendance of students of the last three years”.

6. It is an admitted position that DISE data of the said school was not available; however, the school itself was provincialised, barring the services of the two respondents.

7. The learned Single Judge, taking note of the report of the District Mission Co-ordinator dated 08.06.2022, held that the aforesaid record clearly indicates that the school meets all the requirements mandated under the Act, 2017, for provincialisation.

8. The learned Single Judge also noted the report, which suggested that the two respondents were duly serving for the required period at the relevant time. The learned judge held that such report clearly suggest availability of attendantece register from 17.03.1999 to 04.06.2022 and concluded that though the Section 3(1)(xii) of the Act, 2017 mandates to have DISE data prior to the year 2009-2010, however, the report (supra) submitted pursuant to an enquiry conducted by the District Mission Co- ordinator, clearly satisfied the object of such rule that the school concerned has the required teachers’ and enrolments during the period of existence.

9. The learned single judge also took note of the fact that non recording of the information regarding the School, in the DISE data is for the reason of extreme remote location of the school in the Indo Bhutan border area inside a forest range and therefore based on such technicalities of not having DISE data, the provincialisation of the services of two respondents could not have been rejected, more particularly, when the respondents themselves have verified after due enquiry and reported that the school and the teachers concerned have satisfied the requirements under the Act, 2017.

10. We do not find any infirmity in such findings.

11. After perusal of the Report, which is not disputed by