The main legal point established is the interpretation of the U.P. Subordinate Educational (Trained Graduates Grade) Service Rules, 1983 and the court's decision to quash the Government Order dated 09.01.1992, directing the absorption of C.T. Grade teachers as Assistant Teachers (L.T. Grade) from 19.02.1991 or upon completing five years of satisfactory service in the C.T. Grade.

Sudhanshu Dhulia, J.

1. Heard Mr. Amar Shukla, learned counsel for the petitioner, Mr. B.D. Kandpal, Deputy Advocate General for the State and perused the records.

2. In the above bunch of writ petitions, a common question has been raised before this Court, and hence all these petitions are being decided together. After calling for counter affidavits, which have been filed in most of the writ petitions, the petitioner has also filed rejoinder affidavit in WPSS No. 734 of 2015 and submits that his stand in connected matters is also the same, except for the difference in dates, which is not material. Since the issues are common in all the above writ petitions, therefore, all these petitions are being heard and decided by this common judgment. All the same the facts of WPSS No. 734 of 2015 will be referred while dealing with the factual aspect of these writ petitions.

3. All the petitioners before this Court are teachers, who are working in various Government schools in Uttarakhand. Presently, they all are working as an Assistant Teacher (L.T. Grade). Their grievance is that their absorption as an Assistant Teacher (L.T. Grade) should precede the date of their actual merger. In case it is done, as prayed by the petitioner, the petitioners would then get the benefit of seniority which would strengthen their claim for an earlier promotion to the next higher post of Lecturer, where 50% of the posts are to be filled from amongst Assistant Teacher (L.T. Grade) on the basis of seniority subject to their qualification. Admittedly, for promotion to the post of Lecturer the feeding cadre is the post of Assistant Teacher (L.T. Grade).

4. Another factor which is common to all the petitioners is that they were appointed as C.T. Grade teacher in the erstwhile State of U.P., prior to creation of the State of Uttarakhand (the appointed date for the creation of Uttarakhand is 09.11.2000). All the same, after creation of the new State they have been allocated to the State of Uttarakhand and, as stated above, are already working as an Assistant Teacher (L.T. Grade) in various Government schools.

5. In order to appreciate the grievance of the petitioner a brief background to the service conditions in Education in Secondary and Intermediate Government schools is necessary.

6. In the erstwhile State of Uttar Pradesh, after the primary education i.e. from Class VI onwards, teachers were graded differently. A teacher, who was taking Class VI, VII and VIII was appointed as an Assistant Teacher (C.T. Grade), whereas a teacher, who was taking Class IX and X was an Assistant Teacher (L.T. Grade) and teachers taking Class XI to XII were Lecturers. In short, apart from the primary school i.e. for Class I to V with which we are presently not concerned, there were three different categories of teachers (a) C.T. Grade, (b) L.T. Grade and (c) Lecturer, imparting education in Government schools from Class VI to Class XII. They were graded differently and were placed at different pay-scales. A Lecturer has a higher pay scale than an Assistant Teacher (L.T. Grade) and an Assistant Teacher (L.T. Grade) had a higher pay scale than Assistant Teacher (C.T. Grade).

7. Later the Government in its wisdom thought it best that instead of three grades there should be only two grades i.e. ‘Assistant Teacher (L.T. Grade)’ and ‘Lecturer’ and hence it decided to declare C.T. Grade as a dying cadre vide order dated 19.02.1991. Though there are other Government Orders to this effect, which reflect this intention of the Government and these orders are prior to the above date, but the actual order which was passed by the Special Secretary, Government of Uttar Pradesh by which C.T. Grade was declared as dying cadre and henceforth no appointment would be made of any Assistant Teacher (C.T. Grade) in 19.02.1991. It was further directed that the consequential action, such as merger of existing C.T. Grade teachers into L.T. Grade teachers, and matters regarding their salary, etc. shal