The judgment affirms that teachers' appointments must be approved from original dates, subject to verification, ensuring equality in treatment.

Muralee Krishna S., J.

The respondents in W.P.(C)No.32612 of 2019 filed this writ appeal, invoking the provisions under Section 5 (i) of the Kerala High Court Act, 1958 , challenging the judgment dated 30.10.2025 passed by the learned Single Judge in that writ petition. For convenience of reference, the parties are referred to in this judgment in their status as they are in the writ petition.

2. The petitioners are Higher Secondary School Teachers (Junior) (‘HSST (Jr)’ for short). They were appointed during the year 2012 in the vacancies that were newly sanctioned by the Government in the academic year 2011-2012. Their appointments were approved with effect from the next academic year, providing the reason that the creation of posts and batches had not been sanctioned for the 2011-12 academic year. Consequently, the initial applications for approval were returned by the respective Regional Deputy Directors with a direction to resubmit them, once orders creating the posts were issued. The appeals preferred by the petitioners were also not properly considered, and their approval took effect only from the subsequent date, long after their original appointment. Under those circumstances, the petitioners filed the writ petition under Article 226 of the Constitution of India, seeking the following reliefs;

“i) to issue a writ of certiorari or such other appropriate writ, order or direction quashing Exts.P14 to the extent of fixing prospective effect to the appointments in the said G.O., as they are vitiated with malafides and ill motives;

ii) to issue a writ of certiorari or such other appropriate writ, order or direction quashing Exts.P1 to P5 and in the case of the petitioners 6 to 8, to the extent of not granting approvals from the date of their appointment, appointed as per Exts.P8 to P8(g) respectively, as they are vitiated with malafides and ill motives;

iii) to issue a writ of mandamus or order or direction to respondents 4 to 6 to approve the appointment of the petitioners as HSST (Junior) Commerce, Physics, Computer Application & Economics respectively with effect from their dates of appointments initially appointed as per Exts.P8 to P8(g) respectively and to give salary and consequential benefits there from;

iv) to issue a writ of mandamus or order or direction to respondents 2 to 6 to pay vacation salary to the petitioners during the months of April and May 2013, and to include the petitioners under statutory pension scheme;

v) to declare that the petitioners are entitled to get their date of appointments approved with effect from the date of appointment, appointed as per Exts.P8 to P8(g) respectively with all consequential benefits arising there from.”

3. By the impugned judgment dated 30.10.2025, the learned Single Judge disposed of the writ petition along with another similar writ petition filed by some other HSSTs, i.e., W.P.(C)No.26369 of 2019. Paragraphs 4 to 7 and also the last paragraph of that judgment read thus;

“4. Now, the learned counsel comes up with these writ petitions by producing certain documents through I.A. No.1 of 2025. The documents produced via the IA demonstrate that while certain other persons appointed alongside the petitioners during the academic year 2011-12, had their appointments approved with effect from their original dates of appointment, this benefit was denied to the petitioners. In light of this, the petitioners contend that similarly situated persons, who had preferred W.P.(C) No. 20849 of 2013, were granted relief by this Court's judgment dated September 19, 2014. That judgment directed the respondents to give effect to the petitioners' appointments from the academic year 2011-12 after due verification of their qualifications to hold the post of HSST