The central legal point established in the judgment is the reliance on the recognition and approval of the University by the Distance Education Council, Indira Gandhi National Open University for determining the entitlement of teachers to receive advance incentive increment.

JUDGMENT

(Prayer: Writ Appeal filed under Clause 15 of Letters Patent Act, to set aside the order passed in W.P.No.42675 of 2016 dated 06.09.2018 and allow the writ appeal.)

Common Judgment:

R. Suresh Kumar, J.  Since the issue raised in these batch of writ appeals arising out of a common order passed by the Writ Court in W.P.No.42675 of 2016 & etc., batch dated 06.09.2018 in the matter of Mr.S.Sivan Vs. The Regional Accounts Officer (Audit), with the consent of learned counsel appearing for the parties, all these writ appeals were heard together and are disposed of by this common judgmnet.

2. The appellants in the appeals filed by the private persons i.e., W.A.Nos.2328, 2725, 2802, 2334, 2339, 2495, 2493, 2494, 2335 and 2336 of 2018 were working as teachers at various schools under the respondent Department. During their employment in order to qualify themselves further, they joined in the M.Phil degree course at Vinayaka Missions University during the year 2007 and 2008 and complete the said course in the year 2008 and 2009 as the said course''s duration is one year.

3. As per the Rule, which was in vogue, whoever working as a Teacher, who earned any higher qualification or additional qualification, for which additional incentive increment would be allowed by the respondent State Government /Department.

4. In this context, it is to be noted that, such kind of additional incentive increment at the maximum of two alone, a teacher would be entitled to.

5. These teachers since acquired the said qualification of M.Phil as an additional qualification, they sought for such additional incentive increment, which was considered and granted by the Department.

6. After some time, when internal audit was taken place, the audit team having found that these teachers were given such incentive increments, there had been an objection raised by the audit team through order dated 03.10.2012, which had been directly addressed to the Head Master of the school concerned, where these Teachers were working.

7. The main reason for such objection raised by the audit team was that, all these Teachers uniformly had joined in the course either in the year 2007 or in the year 2008 i..e, M.Phil degree offered by the Vinayaka Missions University at Salem, which is a deemed to be University under Section 3 of the University Grant Commissions Act, 1956.

8. Insofar as the said Vinayaka Missions University is concerned, as it was a deemed to be University, therefore, the Distance Education Course conducted by them under the Distance Education Mode whether was approved by the Distance Education Council, which was part of the Indira Gandhi National Open University [in short, ''IGNO''] at that time and if they did not get any such approval from DEC, IGNO, then the degree secured by these teachers i.e., M.Phil degree from such University cannot be an approved degree and those degrees cannot be accepted as a valid degree for the purpose of awarding any advance incentive increment.

9. This was the objection raised by the audit team through the order dated 03.10.2012. As a result of which, since the teachers were facing the recovery from the Department and also the advance incentive increment already granted been stopped, they approached the Writ Court filed separate writ petitions with a prayer seeking for a writ of certiorari to call for the records of the said order passed by the audit team and to quash the same.

10. Those writ petitions were heard together and were disposed of by a common order passed by the learned single Judge vide order dated 06.09.2018, where all these writ petitions were dismissed.

11. Aggrieved over the said orders passed by the Writ Court dated 06.09.2018, a set of writ appeals have been filed by the teachers and another set of writ appeals have been filed by the said University viz., Vinayaka Missions University that is how these batch of writ appeals have come up before us.

12. Mrs.Nalini Chidambaram, learned Senior Counsel appearing for the appellants