Uma Kant And Another Vs State of U.P. And Others (Supreme Court of India)
SC Orders Reinstatement of Teachers Terminated for Not Having TET at Appointment – Says They Qualified Within Permitted Time- Non-Possession of TET at Appointment Not Fatal If Qualified Within Statutory Deadline, Rules Apex Court
The Supreme Court set aside the orders of the Allahabad High Court and directed reinstatement of two teachers whose services were terminated on the ground that they did not possess Teacher Eligibility Test (TET) qualification at the time of appointment, holding that since they had acquired TET within the extended statutory period, their removal was unjustified.
The appellants were appointed as Assistant Teachers in Jwala Prasad Tiwari Junior High School, Kanpur Nagar in March 2012. At that time, the first TET examination in Uttar Pradesh had been held only recently (November 2011). One of the appellants cleared TET in November 2011, and the other in May 2014. However, their services were terminated by the Basic Shiksha Adhikari (BSA) in July 2018, on the ground that they were unqualified at the time of appointment.
The Court noted that under Section 23 of the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009, as amended on 9 August 2017, teachers appointed or in position as on 31 March 2015 who did not possess the minimum qualifications were granted four years (till 31 March 2019) to acquire them. Since both appellants had passed TET by 2014, they clearly met this requirement.
