Sinhgad Institutes’ crisis: Teachers to file plaint in HC against illegal firing of staff

The last teacher to be fired, a staffer from Sinhgad College of Pharmacy, Vadgaon, was on medical leave due to her pregnancy when she received the letter of discontinuation from the institute. Most of the teachers complained that they were illegally fired stating wrong tenure completion dates.

Teachers protesting against the Sinhgad Technical Education Society (STES) over pending salaries now await the next high court hearing on Monday. Owing to their protests, recently, six teachers from different STES institutes were allegedly fired illegally, under the pretext of tenure completion. One more teacher from Sinhgad College of Pharmacy, Vadgaon, joined the group on Saturday and was asked to discontinue work citing the same reason of tenure completion. Considering this, the teachers have decided to complain about the same to the high court at the hearing.

The teachers are still waiting for the dispersal of ₹171 crores submitted by the social welfare department to the court.(HT PHOTO)

“The move was in contempt of court as all the teachers were either petitioners or agitators. We will take it up in the court on Monday and will be submitting an affidavit against the action,” said Sachin Shinde, the spokesperson of the teachers’ association.

The last teacher to be fired, a staffer from Sinhgad College of Pharmacy, Vadgaon, was on medical leave due to her pregnancy when she received the letter of discontinuation from the institute. Most of the teachers complained that they were illegally fired stating wrong tenure completion dates. 

The teachers are still waiting for the dispersal of ₹171 crores submitted by the social welfare department to the court. The directive to use this amount to pay off their salaries was passed by the Bombay high court during the last hearing on March 21. While the directive has been followed, the amount is yet to be encashed and deposited in the accounts of the teachers.

“We have been told that the social welfare department has been facing a number of technical issues with respect to the records that the 26 Sinhgad colleges have provided regarding their scholarship winning students. The payments were stalled because of the errors in the numbers and we are planning to raise the issue in the next hearing as well. We hope it will be resolved by then,” added Shinde.