The Army Welfare Education Society is not a 'State' under Article 12, and employment disputes are governed by private law, not amenable to writ jurisdiction.

1. Leave granted.

2. Since the issues raised in both the captioned appeals are the same and the challenge is also to the self-same judgment and order passed by the High Court of Uttarakhand, those were taken up for hearing analogously and are being disposed of by this common judgment and order.

A. FACTUAL MATRIX

3. These appeals arise from the common judgment and order passed by the High Court of Uttarakhand at Nainital dated 02.11.2018 in Special Appeal No. 523 of 2014, Special Appeal No. 524 of 2014, Special Appeal No.128 of 2015, Writ Petition No. 439 of 2015 and Writ Petition No. 776 of 2015 resply by which the High Court dismissed the appeals filed by the appellants herein and thereby affirmed the judgment and order passed by the learned single Judge of the High Court dated 05.08.2014 in Writ Petition No. 341 of 2012 filed by the respondents herein.

4. The controversy involved in the present litigation falls within a very narrow compass. We need not state the facts in detail as the order passed by a coordinate Bench of this Court dated 15.02.2021 speaks for itself and gives more than a fair idea as regards the dispute between the parties. The order dated 15.02.2021 reads thus:- “1. Delay condoned.

2. We have heard Mr Sajan Poovayya, learned Senior Counsel appearing on behalf of the Bengal Engineering Group and Centre, the petitioner in the Special Leave Petitions arising out of SLP (C) Diary No 24505 of 2020, with Mr Abhinav Agrawal, learned counsel, Mr Naresh Kaushik, learned counsel appearing on behalf of Army Welfare Education Society1, petitioner in the Special Leave Petition arising out of SLP(C) Diary No 26155 of 2020 and Mr Gopal Sankaranarayanan, learned Senior Counsel appearing on behalf of the caveators.

3. The submission which has been urged by the learned counsel appearing on behalf of the petitioners is that the Bengal Engineering Group and Centre had entered into a lease agreement with the Institute of Brothers of St. Gabriel in respect of the land, which is a B-3 class land under the Cantonment. A School was being conducted by St Gabriel’s Academy. After the term of the lease came to an end, a decision was taken to run a school under the auspices of AWES.

AWES runs about 139 schools all over the country.

On 28 February 2012, a letter was addressed to the staff of the school indicating that those among the teachers who are eligible in terms of CBSE guidelines would be considered for appointment on ad hoc basis for one year and would have to appear and qualify in a written test under AWES Rules and the teachers will be paid salary at par with the service conditions applicable to other teachers of the Army Public Schools. This gave rise to the filing of a writ petition before the High Court of Uttarakhand. The Single Judge allowed the writ petition by issuing a mandamus to the petitioners not to vary the service conditions of the teaching and nonteaching staff to their disadvantage. During the pendency of the proceedings before the Division Bench in appeal, an order was passed by the High Court on 6 January

2016. Paragraphs 3 and 4 of the order read as follows:

“3. BEG has decided to run the institution as an Army School under the Army Welfare Education Society (AWES), which has also come up in appeal against the judgment.

According to AWES, it is running 134 schools all over India. They have a complaint that, at present, for the past two years since 1st April 2012, they are collecting fees at the rates they are collecting in the other Army Public Schools and, yet, they have been compelled to pay the salary, which is being paid to the teachers earlier by St. Gabriel’s, which was in fact collecting far more fees and there is a huge deficit. According to them, they will not terminate the services of the teachers and non-teaching staff, if AWES is permitted to take over; but, they will be paid the salary in terms of the standards, which they have in respect of the other Army Public Schools. It is their case that t