Ludhiana August 2:
With a bunch of contempt petitions pending against Education Department officials in various courts of law, the office of the Director of Public Instructions (Schools) has allowed master-cadre teachers the benefits of pay revision on a par with other categories, including classical and vernacular teachers.
The beneficiaries, many of them represented by successors after their death, had to wait for over 16 months after winning a 20-year-long legal battle to get 43-year-old Kothari Commission’s recommendation implemented in March last year. Though the DPI (Schools) had directed all District Education Officers of the state to send receipts in connection with payment of dues all concerned before August 1, a majority of the beneficiaries are yet to get their long-pending right.
Investigations revealed that the DPI (Schools) had directed all the DEOs of the state to ensure that all master-cadre teachers, in whose favour the Punjab and Haryana court Chandigarh had passed orders on March 24, 2009, should be paid revised salaries with effect from November 1, 1971, instead of July 16, 1975. The petitioners, including Lekh Raj and others, Manmohan Kaur and others, Pritam Chand and others and Raj Kumar Sachdeva and others, had fought the legal battle for 20 years to get disparity between various categories of teachers removed.
After the order, the state government extended the benefit to these teachers in two districts, Amritsar and Ferozepur, but teachers in the rest of the districts had to file contempt petitions in order to get the directions implemented. Unfortunately many died before the implementation of the orders. “Many among us have since died and several are untraceable as they have changed their homes after retirement.
But we are happy that some of us will be able to harvest the fruits of a long legal and administrative battle,” said Lekh Raj, who along with others had filed a contempt petition in the high court. The Kothari Commission had in 1966 recommended the revision after five years.