The association of guest teachers is adopting a wait and watch policy on the order of Uttarakhand High Court (HC) in which the appointment of guest teachers was cancelled by it. On Wednesday, the single bench of Justice Sudhanshu Dhulia nullified all the Government orders regarding reappointment of the guest teachers. The court has however permitted the State Government to take their service till end of this academic session so that studies in the schools are not affected.
When contacted, the Vice-President of the association of Government school guest teachers, Harish Arya said that association is now waiting for the stand taken by the State Government. “We have contacted the education department officers and they told us that they have not received the copy of the court order. We would disclose our future strategy after discussions,’’ Arya said.
The education department had employed 6214 guest teachers on purely temporary basis against the vacant posts of lecturers and lecturer Teachers (lT) in the Government schools of the State last year. These teachers were appointed for a period of 89 days or end of the session and were paid on the basis of the lecturers delivered by them.
On March 31 this year the department terminated their contract following which these teachers started an agitation. Education Minister Mantri Prasad Naithani even sat on a hunger strike in support of the agitating guest teachers during the President’s rule.
When the Congress Government was restored in the State, the first thing the government did was to pass a GO for reinstatement of these teachers.
This GO was contested in the court which on Wednesday termed the Government decisions unconstitutional and cancelled entire process of reappointment of these teachers.