Point of Law: Educational Institution - There is no specific Act, Rule or statutory backing for passing provincialisation order as it could have been issued in an exceptional circumstance but following norms. Petitioners are not having any statutory or legal right in their favour to get their institutions provincialised and in absence of any legal or statutory right, petitioners not entitled to get any relief under Article 226 of Constitution.

JUDGMENT :

1. Heard Sri Prashant Chandra, Sri J.N. Mathur, learned Senior Advocates assisted by Sri H.K.Srivastava and Sri Akbar Ahmad appearing on behalf of the petitioners in Writ Petition No.9389 (S/S) of 2018, Dr. L.P. Mishra, Advocate assisted by Sri Mukund Madhav Asthana in Writ Petition No.5995 (S/S) of 2018, Sri Hari Prasad Gupta, learned counsel for the petitioners in Writ Petition No.22948 (S/S) of 2019 and Writ Petition No.13641 (S/S) of 2018 and Sri Ramesh Kumar Singh, learned Additional Advocate General of U.P. assisted by Sri Pratyush Tripathi, learned Standing Counsel for the State Respondents.

2. Learned Standing Counsel has submitted that the counter affidavit of the State filed in Writ Petition No.13641 (S/S) of 2018 may be read as counter affidavit in Writ Petition No.22948 (S/S) of 2019. Likewise, the counter affidavit of the State filed in Writ Petition No.9389 (S/S) of 2018 may be read as counter affidavit in Writ Petition No.24443 (S/S) of 2020.

3. Since the rejoinder affidavits have also been filed in those writ petitions and parties are agreeable that those affidavits may be treated sufficient for all the writ petitions, therefore, those affidavits shall be treated sufficient for disposal of the bunch of these writ petitions.

4. This is the bunch of writ petitions having similar question of fact and law, therefore, with the consent of learned counsels for the respective parties of the writ petitions, these writ petitions are being decided by a common judgment and order.

5. In all the writ petitions, there are mainly two prayers; (i) quashing of the Government Order dated 13.02.2018 issued by the Secretary, Government of U.P., Department of Education (8) Anubhag, addressing to the Director of Education (Secondary), U.P., cancelling the earlier Government Order dated 23.12.2016 whereby some Educational Institutions had been provincialised; (ii) commanding the Competent Authority to accord necessary approval under sub-para (4) of paragraph-4 of the Government Order dated 23.12.2016 and pay regular salary to the petitioners along with arrears with effect from 23.12.2016 with interest.

6. Notably, none of the writ petition has been filed by the Educational Institution which had been provincialised vide Government Order dated 23.12.2016, which has been cancelled by the impugned Government Order dated 13.02.2018. Actually, these writ petitions have been filed by the teachers and nonteaching staff, e.g. Class-II and Class IV employees, who have allegedly been teaching and serving in those Institutions taking ground that the impugned order dated 13.02.2018 is directly affecting them as despite those teachers having imparted education to the students and others have been serving in those Institutions, they are not being paid salary etc. with effect from 23.12.2016, the date when those Institutions have been provincialised by the State Government after taking over the possession of all the properties of such Institutions allegedly as per law. Further, as per learned counsel for the petitioners that since all the assets and liabilities have been taken over by the State Government so the Committee of Management of the Institutions or Institutions alone may not assail the impugned Government Order dated 13.02.2018.

7. The relevant facts, briefly, are being considered here-in-below:-

8. On 23.12.2016, the State Government issued a Government Order deciding to take over seven Educational Institutions, out of those seven Institutions, teachers and nonteaching staff of five Institutions have filed writ petitions which are before this Court for adjudication. The properties including the assets and liabilities of these Institutions have been acquired by the State Government for converting those Institutions from 'Un-aided Management Institutions' to the Government Institutions.

9. The aforesaid decision has been taken and approved by the then Chief Minister of the State of U.P. on 08.03.2017 for taking over Self-Finance Institutio