NAVNEET DUBEY
Jammu: The Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh High Court has ruled that the seniority of ReT (Rehbar-E-Taleem) teachers should be calculated from their appointment date as general line teachers. The court has excluded the pre-regularization period of five years for seniority purposes.
The appellants challenged a government order that included the ReT teachers’ service period prior to regularization for determining seniority.
A bench of Justices Sanjeev Kumar and Sanjay Parihar observed that ReT teachers become part of the service only after completing five years of satisfactory service, and this period cannot be counted for seniority.
The court found that a proviso in the ReT Scheme allowing backdated seniority from the initial engagement date conflicted with Rule 24(1) of the J&K Civil Services Rules, 1956. According to this rule, seniority begins only from the date an employee becomes a service member.
The court noted that granting retrospective seniority to ReTs disregarded established service law principles and prejudiced regular general line teachers. The government’s policy decision, implemented through a Cabinet order, was deemed arbitrary and inconsistent with service rules.
The court added that government’s decision to grant retrospective seniority to ReTs ignored established principles of service law and prejudiced regular general line teachers, some of whom had joined long before the ReTs were regularized.
The court also said that the policy decision, which was implemented through a Cabinet order, was legally unsustainable, arbitrary, and inconsistent with both the 1979 Recruitment Rules and Rule 24 of the 1956 Rules.
The court said that the earlier in upholding the government order, the writ court was swayed by benefits of many welfare provisions extended to ReT teachers. The court drew a distinction between welfare measures and legal entitlement to seniority, emphasizing that policy convenience cannot override statutory service rules.
The court allowed the petition, setting aside the provision that counted the five-year service period before regularization for seniority purposes. It clarified that welfare benefits for ReT teachers do not entitle them to seniority, emphasizing the distinction between policy convenience and statutory service rules.
The Jammu and Kashmir government introduced the Rehbar-e-Taleem (ReT) Scheme to bridge the teacher shortage in schools by appointing local individuals as teaching guides. Initially, ReTs were appointed for a period of two years, with a possible extension of up to three additional years.
However, in 2014, a government order amended the scheme, introducing a proviso that allowed five years of ReT service to be counted towards seniority and pension benefits. Furthermore, regularized ReTs became eligible for intra-district transfers.
