A.N. Verma, J. - (1.) THESE two petitions are typical of a spate of litigations which is coming to this Court in the shape of writ petitions praying for a writ of mandamus directing the District Inspector of Schools of the concerned district to pay salary to ad hoc teachers for the period beyond 30th of June following the date of their appointment. The question raised in these petitions being identical they are being disposed of by a common judgment after hearing learned counsel for the petitioners as well as the learned Standing Counsel. In each of these petitions coming to this Court the petitioner's grievance is that even though the U.P. Secondary Education Services Commission has not recommended any candidate for appointment under the U.P. Secondary Education Service Commission and Selection Boards Act (U.P. Act No. V of 1982), the District Inspector of Schools has stopped payment of salary to the petitioners on the ground that their ad hoc appointment made under Section 18 of the aforesaid Act has automatically come to an end on the 30th of June following the date of such ad hoc appointment in virtue of clause (c) of Section 18(3) of U.P. Act No. V of 1982. The petitioners assert that they have been validly appointed under Section 18 as ad hoc teachers and their ad hoc appointment having received the approval of the District Inspector of Schools their ad hoc appointment should be deemed to be continuing till a candidate recommended by the Commission or the Board, as the case may be, joins the post. It is further asserted that no teacher has yet been selected by the Commission or, if selected, joined the post held by the petitioner. That being so, it is urged, the District Inspector of Schools should continue to pay salary to the petitioners even beyond 30th of June following the date of their ad hoc appointment.
(2.) THE learned Standing Counsel, on the other hand, submitted that upon plain terms of clause (c) of Section 18(3) the ad hoc appointment of the petitioners must be deemed to have terminated on the 30th June following the date of such appointment and this is so even if no candidate has been selected or recommended by the Commission for substantive appointment. Before we proceed to consider the validity of the above submissions it will be necessary to have a look at the relevant statutory provision, namely Section 18 of the aforesaid Act which provides: 18. Ad hoc Teachers - -(1) Where the management has notified a vacancy to the Commission in accordance with the provisions of this Act, and - - (a) the commission has failed to recommend the name of any suitable candidate for being appointed as a teacher specified in the Schedule within one year from the date of such notification; or (b) the post of such teacher has actually remained vacant for more than two months, then the management may appoint, by direct recruitment or promotion, a teacher on purely ad hoc basis from amongst the persons possessing qualifications prescribed under the Intermediate Education Act, 1921 or the regulations made thereunder. (2) The provisions of sub -section (1) shall also apply the appointment of a teacher (other than a teacher specified in the Schedule) on ad hoc basis with the substitution of the expression 'Board' for the expression 'Commission'. (3) Every appointment of an ad hoc teacher under sub -section 1 or sub -section 2 shall cease to have effect from the earliest of the following dates, namely, (a) When the candidate recommended by the Commission or the Board, as the case may be, joins the post; (b) When the period of one month referred to in sub -section (4) of Section 11 expires; (c) thirtieth day of June following the date of such ad hoc appointment. It appears that when the legislature had enacted Section 18 of the Act it was not anticipated that the process of selection would be unduly delayed and would not be concluded even upto 30th of June following the date of such ad -hoc appointments. However, as it is frequently happening the Commission is unable to complete the selection or recommend a candidate for substantive appointment against the post held by the ad hoc appointee even after 30th June following the date of ad hoc appointment. In some cases, we have noticed that 30th June following the date of ad hoc appointment has intervened more than once as a regular candidate was not selected for upto nearly two year or so. In all such cases the District Inspector of Schools stops paying salary to teachers on the ground that the ad hoc appointment does not survive after 30th June following the date of appointment relying on clause (c) of Section 18(3). In Committee of Management of Sanatan Dharm Intermediate College, Daulatpur, District Mainpuri v. District Inspector of Schools, Mainpuri and others : 1985 U.P.L.B. and E.C. 496, a Division Bench of this court had occasion to consider the legal implications of such a situation. It observed that the legislature could not have intended that the management should repeat the exercise of making an ad hoc appointment of a teacher under Section 18 on the expiry of 30th June following the date of such ad hoc appointment even though the Commission has not recommended the name of any candidate for substantive appointment. We also think that if the services of a teacher validly appointed under Section 18 have not been terminated after such ad hoc appointment or if the Commission has not recommended the name of any candidate for substantive appointment the initial appointment made by the management with the approval of the District Inspector of Schools under Section 18 should be deemed to have been renewed by the management upon the expiry of 30th June following the date of appointment on each occasion. We are clearly of the opinion that the legislature cannot have intended that the same exercise as was involved in the initial ad hoc appointment under Section 18 should be repeated on the expiry of 30th June following the date of appointment. The District Inspector of Schools will, therefore, not be justified in stopping payment of salary to a teacher validly appointed under Section 18 merely because of the fact that 30th June following the date of appointment has elapsed even though the Commission may not have, in the meantime, recommended the candidate for appointment to the post held by the ad hoc appointee. This is the only way in which subsection (3) of Section 18 can be reasonably construed and the various clauses (a) to (c) of sub -section (3), reconciled. Any other construction would clearly lead to wholly unnecessary harassment to the teachers validly appointed under Section 18 of the Act.
(3.) ALTHOUGH the Division Bench in the case mentioned above has given several other reasons for arriving at the same conclusion we would prefer to rest our decision solely on the ground mentioned above, namely, that on a true and proper construction of Section 18 the management must be deemed to have renewed the ad hoc appointment of the teacher on the expiry of 30th June following the date of such ad hoc appointment where the services of the teacher initially appointed under Section 18 have not been terminated in accordance with law or the Commission has failed to recommend the name of any suitable candidate for being appointed as a teacher.;