Protesting against the meritorious schools’ administration has cost around 80 lectures from 10 district in Punjab dearly as the administration has taken strict action against them. The education department has considered their resist as a break in service and deducted a day’s salary of all these teachers.
The department took this decision even before the notices expired and without hearing the their side of the story, claim teachers. The teachers added that this is against the justice system and is a violation of their right to freedom of speech as they still have eight days left to submit their response.
Vice-president (V-P) of the Meritorious Staff Union of Punjab, Baljeet Singh, who is also among these 80 teachers, said that now their five-year experience will be considered equal to zero as the administration is considering their protest as a break in service.
“The education department has ruined our experience and hard work just because we resisted against their decision. The department has decided our punishment without hearing us. This is against the law,” he added.
He further added that even the Supreme Court, in a case titled ‘State of West Bengal and ORS versus Asit Kumar Kar’, while giving decision on January 21, 2009, had stated, “It is a basic principal of justice that no adverse orders should be passed against a party without hearing them out. This is the principal of natural justice and it is a basic canon of jurisprudence.”
{{/usCountry}}He further added that even the Supreme Court, in a case titled ‘State of West Bengal and ORS versus Asit Kumar Kar’, while giving decision on January 21, 2009, had stated, “It is a basic principal of justice that no adverse orders should be passed against a party without hearing them out. This is the principal of natural justice and it is a basic canon of jurisprudence.”
{{/usCountry}}On August 14 this year, the Society for Promotion of Quality Education for Poor and Meritorious Students of Punjab, which runs these schools, had slapped these 80 teachers with show-cause notices for participating in a protest against them and boycotting a test that was being conducted by the society on August 9.
“We were just opposing the society’s move of conducting test. Our right to freedom of speech and expression allows us to resist against the injustice. We are delivering 100% results in the classrooms and despite this, they have selected this test to evaluate our knowledge and intelligence,” said Baljeet.
Project director Maninder Singh Sarkaria said, “We have taken action against teacher, but they are welcomed to submit their replies. If the replies are found to be satisfactory, the penalty can be changed.”
There are ten branches of the Meritorious School in state, at Bathinda, Amritsar, Jalandhar, Patiala, Ludhiana, Mohali, Ferozepur, Talwara (Hoshiarpur), Ghabdan (Sangrur) and Gurdaspur.