The Supreme Court has clarified that courts cannot issue a mandamus under Articles 226 or 142 directing blanket regularisation of para-teachers engaged under Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) into State cadre posts of Assistant Teacher or Sahayak Acharya in a manner contrary to statutory recruitment rules framed under Article 309. The Court however said that para-teachers have no right to regularisation as such, but they do have a right to participation and consideration in accordance with the statutory framework created by the State.
The Court held that direct absorption from a scheme post into a state’s cadre post would alter the source and character of appointment and create a new mode of recruitment not sanctioned by law, which is prohibited by Umadevi and allied precedents. The operative relief was therefore not regularisation, but enforcement of the State’s own statutory mechanism.
Accordingly, the Court directed the State of Jharkhand to determine vacancies, earmark 50% vacancies for para-teachers, issue exclusive notifications for those posts, and complete such recruitment for the current academic year within the timelines fixed by the Court, and thereafter follow an annual recurring calendar. Essentially, the Court rejected blanket judicial regularisation of Jharkhand para-teachers, but requires the State to actually and periodically fill the 50% reserved statutory quota for them through the recruitment route already created under the 2012 and 2022 Rules.
A Two-Judge Bench comprising Justice Pankaj Mithal and Justice S.V.N. Bhatti framed the principal question not as whether the initial entry of para-teachers was irregular or illegal, but whether courts under Articles 226 and 142 could direct regularisation of para-teachers as Assistant Teachers or Sahayak Acharyas contrary to the statutory scheme.
The Bench noted that the State had framed statutory recruitment rules under Article 309 which gave para-teachers a right of participation and consideration for regular cadre posts through a defined mechanism, including 50% earmarked vacancies under the 2012 Rules and the 2022 Rules.
The Bench accepted the High Court’s basic view that the para-teachers could not claim regularisation merely because they had accepted contractual appointments under SSA, and that blanket regularisation as Assistant Teachers/Sahayak Acharyas would be contrary to the constitutional and statutory scheme explained in Umadevi.
At the same time, the Bench recognised that the State could not resist regularisation and simultaneously fail to operationalise its own statutory mechanism meant for para-teachers. It therefore moulded the relief and directed the State to periodically notify and fill the 50% earmarked vacancies for para-teachers every academic year.
On pay parity, the Bench held that “equal pay for equal work” is not automatic and requires proof that duties, responsibilities, qualifications, accountability and service conditions are qualitatively identical. It observed that para-teachers, though performing similar classroom functions, were not assigned the full range of responsibilities of Assistant Teachers, and therefore the claim as framed was not accepted as an automatic entitlement.
Thus, the Bench deliberately declined to decide whether the initial entry of para-teachers into service was “irregular” or “illegal”, holding that the issue had been rendered academic because the State itself had recognised para-teachers as a distinct and legitimate class by reserving 50% vacancies for them in the statutory recruitment framework.
Briefly, the dispute concerns para-teachers engaged in Jharkhand under the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA), who had been engaged on a contractual basis starting from 2002. They challenged the Jharkhand High Court judgment which had dismissed their petitions seeking regularisation as Assistant Teachers, appointment against vacant sanctioned posts, pay parity with regular Assistant Teachers, and invalidation of parts of the Jharkhand Primary School Recruitment Rules, 2012 that did not provide a route for regularisation.
The para-teachers argued that they had served for long periods, had acquired qualifications such as B.A., M.A., B.Ed. and passed TET, were performing duties similar to regular Assistant Teachers, and were being paid only a fixed honorarium with delays in payment. They also contended that there were large numbers of vacancies in Jharkhand schools and that other States had framed policies for regularisation of para-teachers.
The State’s case was that para-teachers were initially engaged as education volunteers on fixed honorarium under community school schemes later subsumed into SSA; they were engaged by local School Management Committees/Village Education Committees, not through the regular district recruitment process for State cadre posts. Their appointments were purely contractual and co-terminus with the scheme, and therefore did not confer any right to absorption, permanency, or parity with government teachers.
The State further relied on the statutory framework created under Article 309, including the 2012 Rules and the 2022 Sahayak Acharya Rules, which already reserved 50% vacancies for eligible para-teachers and allowed them age relaxation. The State also placed an additional affidavit showing that para-teachers were in fact being appointed both in the reserved para category and in the open category through the ongoing statutory recruitment process.
Appearances:
Colin Gonsalves, Sr. Adv., Tanya Agarwal, Adv., Krishna Kumar Keshav, Adv., Shubhangi Tuli, AOR, Anilendra Pandey, AOR, Rajeev Kumar Ranjan, Adv., Ashutosh Gupta, Adv., Kamlesh Upadhyay, Adv., Aarati Sah, Adv., Animesh Shukla, Adv. Narendra Kumar, Adv. Santosh Kumar Vishwakarma, Adv., Santosh Kumar Pandey, AOR, Colin Gonsalves, Sr. Adv., Tanya Agarwal, AOR, Krishna Kumar Keshav, Adv., Sandeep Jha, Adv., Ram Ekbal Roy, Adv., Binay Kumar Das, AOR, Rajiv Ranjan Dwivedi, AOR, Prashant Bhushan, AOR, Alice Raj, Adv., Rahul Gupta, Adv., Gopal Sankaranarayanan, Sr. Adv., Dr. Rajiv Nanda, Sr. Adv., Brajesh Pandey, Adv., Shashank Ratnoo, Adv., Shantanu Lakhotia, Adv., Divyaveer Singh, Adv., Kanchan Kumar Jha, Adv., Divya Negi, Adv., and M/s. Brajesh Pandey & Associates, AOR, for Appellants
Arunab Choudhary, Sr. A.A.G., Vishnu Sharma, Adv., Madhusmita Bora, AOR, Pawan Kishore Singh, Adv., Pavithra V., Adv., Krishna Murari, Adv., Satya Mitra, AOR, Gurmeet Singh Makker, AOR, Raj Bahadur Yadav, AOR, Satyajeet Kumar, AOR, Goutam Prasad, Adv., Priyanka, Adv., Colin Gonsalves, Sr. Adv., Tanya Agarwal, AOR, Krishna Kumar Keshav, Adv., for Respondents
