Protik Prakash Banerjee, J. - (1.) There is one important lesson that those teachers in service of a religious minority educational institution in West Bengal must take away from this appeal. In a way it is a lesson that society has taught us as a part of the new "morality" of the consumerist society. Never protest against injustice, for the management will find some way to punish you.
(2.) On its face, this is a straight forward appeal from a judgment and order dated October 26, 2017 passed in W.P. No.25680 (W) of 2017 [Hasi Sen-v-The State of West Bengal and Others]. By the said order, the writ petition was allowed to a limited extent. This order was passed in three other cases which were heard analogously. These are W.P. No.25701 (W) of 2017 [Lourdes Mary Williams-v-The State of West Bengal and Others], W.P. No.25704 (W) of 2017 [Soumya Gargash-v- The State of West Bengal and Others] and W.P. No.25697 (W) of 2017 [Nalia Ali-v-The State of West Bengal and Others]. The appellants herein appear not to have preferred an appeal against the common order passed in these three other writ petitions. Besides, the preamble to the Memorandum of Appeal describes the appeal to be from an order dated September 26, 2017 when on the face of the copy of the order which accompanies the memorandum, it is from an order dated October 26, 2017. The court could have rejected the memorandum as being defective on this ground alone, but for reasons which should be clear from the discussion below, it thought it better to decide the matter on substance rather than on the form, though in law the order had achieved finality as against the appellants in the other writ petitions from which no appeal was carried.
(3.) The writ petitioner/respondent no. 1 (hereafter the writ petitioner) in this appeal and three other assistant teachers of the same appellant school, were agitating against the management of the appellant because they were not being paid the arrears of the benefits accruing to the assistant teachers under the Revision of Pay and Allowances, Rules, 2009, as implemented by the school as a dearness allowance getting school. The management was giving the current benefits but not the arrears, despite drawing dearness allowance from the State of West Bengal till January 2013, on the specious ground that if they had to pay the arrears from April 1, 2008 to March 31, 2009, over a period of three years in equal yearly installments, then they would have to create tremendous financial strain on the students and their families, who belonged largely to the middle class, by raising the fees. The appellant chose to forego its Dearness Allowance getting status without however, refunding the money it had drawn as dearness allowance from the State of West Bengal. The reasoning seems to be, lack of money was a reason not to obey the law. Be that as it may, because the writ petitioner and the other persons approached this Court without explaining the delay in doing so, though they prevailed before the learned single Judge in W.P. No.15316 (W) of 2016 [Mrs. Hasi Sen and Others-v-State of West Bengal and Others] by an order dated December 7, 2016, this Court was constrained to reverse the judgment by its decision dated September 19, 2018 in FMA 1372 of 2017.;