Mootham, C.J. - (1.) THIS is an appeal from an order of Mr. Justice Chaturvedi dated the 29th March, 1955, dismissing a petition under Article 226 of the Constitution.
(2.) THE appellant was appointed Headmaster of the G. H. P. Higher Secondary School, Nagina, in the year 1928. At that time the school was a Middle School. Subsequently it became a High School and in 1948 an intermediate college. THE appellant continued to hold office as Headmaster, and he acted as the first Principal of the College until October, 1948. In that month a new Principal was appointed and the appellant thereafter performed the duties of an assistant teacher. On the 29th August, 1949, the managing committee of the college terminated the appellant's services with effect from the 1st September, 1949. THE appellant did not accept the validity of the resolution terminating his services and the ensuing dispute was ultimately referred to a board of arbitration. That board, by an award dated the 10th March, 1954. upheld the action of the managing committee in terminating the appellant's services. THE appellant thereupon filed a petition in this Court challenging the validity of the proceedings before the board and praying that they be quashed by a writ of certiorari. This petition was dismissed by the order which is the subject of the present appeal. In our opinion the petition was rightly dismissed, but we have reached this conclusion on grounds somewhat different to those which found favour with the learned Judge. In our opinion the appellant's petition was misconceived. The main contention of the appellant is that the arbitration board was not duly constituted and had therefore no jurisdiction to determine the dispute between the appellant and the managing committee. Paragraph 358(2) of the Educational Code of the Uttar Pradesh, 1936, provides that the conditions of service of every permanent teacher. Including heads of institutions, shall be governed by an approved agreement executed by him and the managing committee. The sub-paragraph further provides that failure to comply With this provision "will not release either the teacher or the managing committee from the obligation entered into in the agreements." Now it is common ground that at the time of his appointment as headmaster in 1928 the appellant executed an agreement in the prescribed form; it is further not in dispute that although from September 1948 to the 1st September. 1949. the appellant acted as an assistant teacher, he never entered into an agreement in the form prescribed for assistant teachers. The approved forms of agreement for headmasters and assistant teachers provide for the reference of certain classes of dispute to an arbitration board to be constituted as provided in the agreement. The constitution of the board in the case of assistant teachars is however somewhat different to that in the case of headmasters. The board which adjudicated upon the dispute in the present case was a board appropriate for the disposal of disputes between a headmaster and the managing committee, and the appellant's contention is that that Board had no jurisdiction to deal with his dispute as he was an assistant teacher, and that in any case as soon as the Board came to the conclusion, as it did, that the status of the appellant was that of an assistant teacher it ceased to have jurisdiction to determine the other questions referred to it.
(3.) THE substance of the appellant's grievance, therefore, is that the Board which was constituted to decide his dispute was constituted in breach of the provisions of the agreement regulating the conditions of his service. It is true that he did not execute an agreement in his capacity as an assistant teacher, but he says that the effect of paragraph 358(2) of the Educational Code is to put all parties in the position that they would have been in, had the appropriate agreement been executed; and this is not disputed. It follows in consequence that the quest on at issue between the appellant and the managing committee is whether there has been a breach of the terms of the appellant's agreement. It is, in other words, a dispute of a contractual nature, end this Court has consistently declined to entertain disputes of this character in the exercise of its jurisdiction under Article 226 of the Constitution.;