NEW DELHI: New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Thursday permitted teachers of government aided schools in Kerala to contest ensuing Assembly polls by staying a judgment of the Kerala HC, which had disqualified them on the ground that they held ‘office of profit’.
Arguing for two petitioners, senior advocates V Giri and Devadatt Kamat, told a three-judge bench headed by Chief Justice S A Bobde that the single judge bench of the HC erred in not following a judgment of the HC division bench which in Gopala Kurup case in 1961 had categorically held that employees of aided institutions in the State of Kerala “would not be treated as holding offices of profit under the Government”.
The HC in its recent judgment had held that a teacher of an aided educational institution in Kerala, in terms of the provisions of Kerala Education Act, 1958, and relevant rules, is a person holding an ‘office of profit’, under the Kerala government. The HC had further said that under the Kerala Education Rules, 1959, permitting the teachers to take special leave, to contest in the elections to various bodies, would be redundant and inconsequential.
This judgment had impeded many teachers, who work in government aided schools and madrasas, to contest elections in the politically aware state, which had seen the main contest for the reins of power between coalitions led by the Left parties and Congress.
One of the petitioners, through advocate Javedur Rahman, said the impugned judgment is completely erroneous in as much as it seeks to judicially prescribe an additional ground of disqualification being ‘teachers of aided schools’ from participating in elections. “This approach is completely contrary to the recent constitution bench judgment of this SC in 2019 in Public Interest Foundation case, wherein the SC had emphatically stated that it is not within the domain of the Courts to prescribe disqualifications but it is for the Parliament to do so.”