HC restrains education commissioner from SIT probe into school appointments across Maharashtra

The Bombay High Court has barred the Education Commissioner from an SIT investigation into teacher appointments, citing misuse of authority and ongoing FIRs.

MUMBAI: After finding that FIRs were being registered and teachers arrested despite earlier court orders to the contrary, the Bombay High Court has restrained Commissioner of Education Sachindra Pratap Singh from participating in the investigation being carried out by a Special Investigation Team (SIT) into appointments of teaching and non-teaching staff in schools across Maharashtra.

HC restrains education commissioner from SIT probe into school appointments across Maharashtra

“The Commissioner of Education is busy issuing directions for registration of FIRs when the SIT is exclusively constituted for this purpose. If the Commissioner himself wants to inquire and investigate as a single member SIT, we have every reason to even doubt the SIT,” observed a division bench of Justice Ravindra Ghuge and Justice Hiten Venegaonkar.

The judges expressed strong displeasure after noting a spurt in FIRs against teachers despite earlier restraining orders passed by the court. The bench noted that the education commissioner was continuing to direct registration of FIRs and, in one such case, an assistant teacher from Navi Mumbai was arrested by the Vashi police.

“We had expected him to follow a natural course of investigation rather than issuing directions for registration of FIRs, which ex facie may not be within the ambit of his jurisdiction,” the judges said.

The court was hearing a batch of petitions filed by teachers who alleged that their salaries had been stopped without due process and that FIRs were being registered against several of them over alleged irregularities in their appointments. The state government had constituted the SIT to investigate the allegations.

Earlier, after noticing that complaints against teachers were being filed by complete “strangers and busy bodies”, the bench had, on April 22, stayed the stoppage of salaries of all teachers and directed the state government to continue paying salaries to teachers who were in service and working on a regular basis.

During the hearings, the judges repeatedly observed that both the SIT investigation and the functioning of the education commissioner appeared directionless, prompting the court to pass a series of detailed orders. Last week, however, the bench found that “the Commissioner of Education travelled beyond” the court’s earlier directions by ordering registration of FIRs through certain officers.

The judges also took serious note of the fact that salaries of 892 teaching and non-teaching staff members had been stopped despite the court having clarified that employees whose appointment approvals remained intact should continue to receive salaries. The bench observed that the stoppage had occurred “under the guidance” of the education commissioner.

Against this backdrop, the high court suggested the formation of a high-powered committee headed by a recently retired high court judge or former chief justice to supervise the investigation. The matter has now been posted for hearing on June 22, when the state government is expected to inform the court about its decision on constituting the proposed high-powered committee.