‘Conduct unbecoming’: Bombay HC upholds Raigad teacher’s termination over ‘romantic’ WhatsApp messages to students

The court clarified that “nothing in the judgment attaches stigma to the content of messaging,” as no WhatsApp chats were on record.

“To my mind, the fact that a teacher had been texting a student, with a serious age gap, poses adequate grounds for the management being dissatisfied with the probationer-petitioner,” the judge added.

The court noted the petitioner issued a written apology the day the messaging was discovered, and he had “not retracted his written confirmation and apology on the ground of coercion”.

The high court noted the petitioner was engaged as a probationary assistant teacher on February 29, 2020, for three years. In December 2022, the school received complaints from parents about his messages to certain girl students. Thereafter, he apologised in writing to the principal, “confirming his electronic contact with the student”.

“Local unrest is said to have occurred with a mob having gathered over the matter, necessitating the principal having to intercede and save the petitioner,” the court noted. On January 31, 2023, the school terminated his probation with effect from February 1 that year, with pay in lieu of a month’s notice.

Advocate Sugandh Deshmukh, for the teacher, submitted that as the probation was to end in February 2023, he “became a permanent employee before the notice period would potentially expire”. Therefore, Deshmukh said, a law governing permanent employees was required to be invoked, and due inquiry should have been initiated before arriving at any decision, with an opportunity for the petitioner to be heard.

“In my opinion, the management is entitled to adopt a zero-tolerance policy in the specific factual matrix of the case and avoid future crisis, taking into account that the petitioner was on probation and statutorily, the management was entitled to terminate the probation with one month’s notice or payment in lieu of the notice. In my view, the management had sufficient material to form a reasonable opinion, that conduct unbecoming of a school teacher is not satisfactory behaviour,” Justice Sundaresan observed.

The high court further observed that the petitioner, “without stigma being attached” to him, “has been given a soft landing within the ambit of Section 5(3) (school’s power to terminate) of Maharashtra Employees of Private Schools (Conditions of Service) Regulation Act”.

The court, while dismissing the plea, held that the school management was entitled to terminate the probationer “without the entire exercise that would have been applicable to a permanent employee”.