HC upholds summary dismissal of teacher for harassing female student

“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,” the bench concluded, dismissing the teacher’s petition

MUMBAI: The Bombay High Court has upheld the summary termination of a probationary assistant teacher (shikshan sevak) for allegedly harassing a female student by sending her personal messages via WhatsApp.

HC upholds summary dismissal of teacher for harassing female student

“The very fact that a teacher was admittedly in contact with students outside the classroom and outside work hours would be adequate to hold that such contact is inappropriate, and such behaviour is not satisfactory,” the high court said while upholding the teacher’s summary dismissal.

The petitioner was appointed shikshan sevak on February 29, 2020, for a period of three years, with the probation period ending on February 28, 2023. On December 23, 2022, parents of a student complained to the school, alleging the teacher was sending their daughter messages via WhatsApp, which according to them constituted harassment.

The teacher subsequently confirmed that he was in contact with the student and tendered a written apology to the school principal. But the school management terminated his probationary engagement on January 31, 2023 due to the seriousness of the complaints and the local unrest that followed.

The teacher first challenged his termination before the school tribunal and approached the high court after failing to secure any relief. In the court, he contended that no show cause notice was issued to him, nor any inquiry was conducted; instead, his services were terminated without giving him a chance for explanation.

On January 20, a single judge bench of justice Somasekhar Sundaresan ruled that the school management was “entitled to adopt a zero-tolerance policy” in the specific factual matrix of the case, thereby avoiding the situation festering into a larger controversy. The management had sufficient material to form a reasonable opinion, the court said, while noting that “the conduct, unbecoming of a school teacher is not satisfactory behaviour”.

“It was not necessary for the authorities to have conducted a full-blown departmental enquiry, rather than choosing instead to let go of the probationer,” the court said.

No WhatsApp messages were on record, and nothing in the termination order was a finding of “any stigma about the content of the messaging”, the court noted.

“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,” the bench concluded, dismissing the teacher’s petition.