IMPORTANT POINT : Termination from service – Respondents directed to consider cases of petitioners and pass appropriate order of relaxation of minimum age in their favour.

Judgment :

In these three writ petitions clubbed together, the petitioners are aggrieved of and have challenged Government Order No.78-Edu of 2022 dated 21.02.2022 [“the impugned order’] whereby the engagement of the petitioners as Rehbar-e-Taleems [“ReTs’] in Middle School, G.B. Langkhul Kachard Nadimarg, Kulgam, Middle School, Nagbal, Anantnag and UPS Adoora Shopian, respectively has been terminated with immediate effect. The impugned order is challenged by the petitioners in their respective petitions on variety of grounds. However, before adverting to the grounds of challenge pleaded and urged by learned counsel appearing for the petitioners, it is necessary to set out brief background, leading to the issuance of impugned order of termination of engagement of the petitioners.

2. ReT Scheme for providing teaching guides in the Schools facing deficiency of teaching staff was launched nationwide somewhere in the year 2000. The then Government of Jammu and Kashmir, vide Government Order No.396-Edu of 2000 dated 28.04.2000, issued detailed guidelines for engagement of teaching guides to be known as ReTs in different Schools of the then State. The selection process to supply the identified vacancies of ReTs was set in motion in different education zones of the State. As a sequel to this effort of the Government, ZEO, D.H.Pora issued an Advertisement Notification on 28.12.2011 inviting applications from the candidates hailing from the revenue village concerned for filling up of two posts of ReTs in the Primary School Gojer Basti Lungkhull Kachad Nandimarg and the last date for submission of application forms was 10 days from the publication of the said notification. The petitioner Javeed Ahmad Bhat participated in the selection process along with other eligible candidates. He, in view of his merit, was selected and engaged as ReT in the aforesaid School under SSA 2011-12 in terms of Order No. CEO/K/Ret/1983-84/12 dated 03.05.2012 issued by the Chief Education Officer Kulgam. Similarly, the petitioner Sajad Hussian Shah was selected and engaged as ReT in Middle School, Nagbal in terms of order No. ZEO/A/847/12 dated 26.11.2012 issued by the ZEO, Aishmuqam. The engagement of the petitioner Sajad Hussian Shah was made pursuant to the selection process conducted in terms of Advertisement Notification dated 12.06.2008 issued by the ZEO Aishmuqam, Anantnag. Likewise, the petitioner Shabeer Ahmed Malla came to be engaged as ReT in UPS Adoora, Shopian by the order of ZEO, Keegam issued vide his No.ZEO/Keegam/RET/476-79 dated 28.05.2012. The engagement of the petitioner Shabeer Ahmad Malla was in reference to the selection process conducted pursuant to an Advertisement Notification issued by the ZEO, Keegam on 30.12.2008.

3. All the petitioners joined their respective Schools and performed their duties as ReTs for more than five years continuously and to the best satisfaction of the respondents. As is provided under the ReT Scheme promulgated by the Government vide Government order dated 28.04.2000 (supra), all the three petitioners became entitled to regularization as General Line Teaches. Accordingly, their cases were forwarded to the Government for consideration and issuance of appropriate orders of regularization as General Line Teachers in their favour.

4. It appears that the Administrative Department of School Education, while scrutinizing the cases of the petitioners for regularization as General Line Teachers, found that the age of the petitioner Javeed Ahmed Bhat on 1st of January of the calendar year in which the Advertisement notice was issued for engagement of ReT in the School concerned, was 17 years, 09 months and 21 days and the age of the petitioner Sajad Hussain Shah was 17 years, 10 months and 21 days on 1st of January of the calendar year in which the Advertisement notice for engagement of ReT in Middle School Nagbal Anantnag was issued. Likewise, in the case of the petitioner Shabeer Ahmed Malla, the Administrative Departm