Kashmiri Pandit teachers: Court orders regular jobs, equal pay

The teachers had been appointed on “temporary contract basis” by the government due to a policy decision in 1994, which noted that the Kashmiris had been “displaced” due to violence and would return to their homes once the situation calmed.

In its judgment issued on Monday, Justice Rajiv Shakdher directed the Delhi government, MCD and NDMC to create posts within three months and give equal pay and benefits to the Kashmiri migrant teachers, who have been working on much lower salaries and without any benefits for the past 20 years.

The teachers will also be given salaries and benefits on par with the regular teachers. The court directed that the 12 petitioners who had retired during the pendency of the appeal will also treated as regular employees and given due benefits.

“The petitioners before me appear to be children of a lesser God,” the court observed, adding that the migrants had been forced to leave their homes in a “riches to rags story”.

The court noted that the teachers were required to undertake a full teaching load “without being accorded the usual benefits such as medical facilities, HRA and provident fund”.

The teachers were also denied paid leave during summer vacations and were “expected to undertake remedial classes and other administrative works, if they wished to earn their wages for the period when, schools, ordinarily remained closed,” the court said.

In their plea filed through advocates B L Wali and senior advocate Rakesh Tiku, the teachers had said that their salary in MCD schools was about 50 per cent of the salary paid to the regular teachers, while the PGTs at Delhi government schools get about 60 per cent of the salaries paid to their counterparts.

“The petitioners, to my mind, without doubt are performing equal work of equal value. Despite which, there is a deep disparity in the pay and emoluments of the petitioners in comparison to their counter parts holding regular posts,” the court said.

The court also noted that the teachers had filed various applications before the Central government, the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Civil Defence and Rehabilitation of J&K Migrants as well as the Public Grievances Commission, which had all recommended that the appointments be regularised. The Delhi government had, however, argued that the contractual teachers could not be made regular under the terms of a Supreme Court judgment. The High Court, however, dismissed the arguments.

After the mass exodus from Jammu and Kashmir due to violence in 1989-90, Kashmiri Pandit migrants had settled in camps set up for the internally displaced persons in Delhi.

In 1994, the government came up with a scheme to employ the qualified teachers as PGTs, TGTs and assistant teachers in schools run by the DoE, MCD and NDMC on contract.

The teachers were given extension of employment over the years, but were denied any promotions, benefits or leaves.

Speaking to The Indian Express, Veena Kaul, the president of the Government Schools Teachers Association (Migrant), said that the teachers appointed between 1994 and 1998 had been continuing at the same posts without promotions. “Now we have the satisfaction that justice has been done,” she said.