IMPORTANT POINT
The court established that the principle of parity in pay and allowances between government and minority school teachers is constitutionally mandated, and any deviation from this principle without a valid basis constitutes discrimination.

JUDGMENT :

SHREE CHANDRASHEKHAR, J.

1. Twenty-one writ petitions challenging the order dated 18th August 2008 passed by the Director, Secondary Education were taken up for hearing together and a decision thereon was rendered on 2nd May 2023; writ petitions were allowed.

2. In this batch of Letters Patent Appeals, the State of Jharkhand seeks to challenge the common order dated 2nd May 2023 passed in the aforementioned batch of writ petitions with a direction for refund of the amount recovered from the writ petitioners.

3. The brief facts of the case are that the respondents were appointed in the government-aided minority institutions on teaching and non-teaching posts. They referred to the decision of the Government of Bihar vide memo No. 2526 dated 11th July 1979 whereunder the salary of the teaching and non-teaching staff of the minority-aided-school was brought equivalent to the staff in the government schools. They have also referred to Resolutions dated 30th August 1980 and 22nd December 1981 whereunder pay-scale, allowances, provident fund, family pension and other monetary benefits were extended to the teaching and non-teaching staff in the minority-aided institutions. They further pleaded that Resolution No. 237 dated 20th February 1990 brought the employees of the minority-aided-schools at par with the government schools.

4. On recommendation of the Fitment Committee vide Resolution dated 8th February 1999, the pay-scale of the government employees was revised w.e.f. 1st January 1996 and the arrears of monetary benefits to be given from 1st April 1997. The Human Resources Development Department accepted the aforesaid Resolution dated 8th February 1999 and vide letter dated 26th September 2007 the Department issued an instruction to the Deputy Directors and District Education Officers for providing the benefits thereunder to the employee of the minority-aided-schools w.e.f. 1st January 1996. Consequent thereto, the monetary benefits were given to the respondents from 1st April 2007 till February 2009 which included interim allowance and education allowance.

5. However, the Director, Secondary Education, Government of Jharkhand by a letter dated 18th August 2008 advised the District Education Officer, Ranchi that the employees of the minority schools are not entitled for interim allowance and education allowance and issued a direction to fix their pay-scale excluding the interim allowance and education allowance.

6. The respondents challenged the letter dated 18th August 2008 before this Court in a batch of writ petitions.

7. In the order dated 2nd May 2023, the writ Court held as under:

“15. Similar issue fell for consideration before the Hon’ble Patna High Court in C.W.J.C. No. 2897 of 2005 and the Court after interpreting various resolutions and government decisions to maintain complete parity in the matter of pay-scale and other allowances between the teaching and non-teaching staff of government nationalized school and government aided minority schools, vide its order dated 10.05.2011 allowed the said writ petition directing the respondent-State to resume payments of teaching allowance and interim relief to petitioners and their like till pay revision were effected as in the case of other teachers of nationalized government schools. The relevant paragraphs of the said judgment is quoted herein-below:

“Thus, two Resolutions clearly show that the Government decision was to treat both of them at parity and there would be no discrimination between the two on ground of being Teachers in a recognised minority school. In my view, this is consistent with Article-30 (2) of the Constitution which prohibits any such discrimination. A reference to Annexure-4 would also show that Government was conscious that pending pay revision, interim relief is made payable. It was specifically decided that even interim relief would be payable to Teachers of Government aided minority schools just like other Government Teachers. All this is being upse