Chennai: The Madras high court has dismissed a batch of petitions from secondary grade teachers working in government schools, which sought a direction to the state government to pay selection grade/special grade pay of a primary school headmaster on their completing 10 and 20 years of service.
Justice D. Hariparanthaman dismissed the petitions from S. Arulappan and 129 others. In 1998, the Tamil Nadu administrative tribunal upheld the teachers’ claim and said the government must pay primary headmasters’ pay to teachers in high schools and higher secondary schools on their completion of 10 years and 20 years of service.
A division bench of the high court confirmed the tribunal order on July 14, 2009. The Supreme Court dismissed the SLP filed by the state government in April 2010 on a technical ground of delay. Due to this, senior schoolteachers had been receiving a higher salary all these years. After the government refused to continue the practice, the petitioners filed the present batch of petitions.
Dismissing the petitions, the judge said dismissal of the SLP by the apex court would not constitute a ‘binding precedent’ for the petitioners to claim higher salary.
The secondary grade teachers in government schools were governed by the TN educational subordinate service rules and they came under the control of the directorate of school education.
Primary school headmasters belonged to a different service and they were governed by the TN elementary education subordinate service rules. They came under the control of the directorate of elementary education, the judge pointed out.
