Chennai: The Madras Bench of the Central Administrative Tribunal ordered notice to the Puducherry Government on a plea from private school teachers in the Union Territory, challenging the move to appoint teachers on contract basis in the Department of Education.
In the petition, G. Adonish, 39 and 14 others submitted that they serve as teachers in private schools in Puducherry and Karaikal. After completing UG, PG degrees and B Ed they passed the Teacher’s Eligibility Test conducted either by the Tamil Nadu Government or by the Central government. The Directorate of School Education, Puducherry conducts recruitment for the post of Trained Graduate Teacher/ Lecturer (PG Teacher). The Union Territory has not conducted recruitment for these posts for more than 12 years. The last recruitment was in 2006 for the post of Trained Graduate Teachers for English, Mathematics, Science and Social Science subjects. More than 1000 posts are vacant so far.
Counsel for the petitioners, M Gnanasekar submitted that while this was so, the authorities issued a notification dated October 30, 2018 calling for applications to the posts of guest teachers in the category of Trained Graduate Teachers. Only six posts of guest graduate teachers and eight posts of lecturers were notified.
Gnanasekar sought the Tribunal to set aside the notification, as it is not proper to recruit people on contract basis against permanent posts. The petitioners are deprived of their opportunity by the illegal action of the Department and Union Territory in appointing ad hoc teachers and ad hoc lecturers and allowing them to continue in the posts indefinitely for many years. He feared that the teachers who work on contract basis for Sarva Sishya Abihyan projects would be absorbed in the department for direct recruitment in the TGT quota.
When the matter came up for hearing, the Tribunal ordered notice to the Union Government to file a reply before January 29, 2019.
