New Delhi: The Meghalaya Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan Schools Association (MSSASA) has decided to file a review petition in the Supreme Court against its 1 September verdict mandating that all in-service teachers clear the Teacher Eligibility Test (TET) to retain their jobs.
The decision was made unanimously at an MSSASA meeting on 6 October, where it was decided to challenge the ruling’s retrospective application to long-serving teachers who had nearly reached the age of retirement, according to a report by the Press Trust of India.
Meghalaya isn’t the first state to voice its discontent. On 30 September, the Tamil Nadu government also filed a review petition against the ruling by a two-judge bench of the top court, which gave teachers two options. The first was to pass the TET to retain their jobs, while the second was to take voluntary retirement or quit service if they didn’t.
The Meghalaya-based association said the ruling could jeopardise careers and livelihoods of teachers appointed before the enforcement of the TET requirement, adding that the ruling disproportionately impacts teachers who have been in service for decades.
Significantly, the two-judge bench also ruled that a 2014 Supreme Court decision exempting minority schools from the Right To Education Act (RTE) 2009 be reconsidered.
In its 110-page decision, the court pointed to a “sharp rise” in schools applying for minority status in the aftermath of the Constitution (Ninety-third Amendment) Act, 2006, which exempted minority institutions from the test requirement. The court said that the exemption was being used as a vehicle to circumvent the mandate of the 2009 legislation.
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SC ruling on TET
In its 1 September ruling in the Anjuman Ishaat-e-Taleem Trust case, the top court had to decide whether the requirement of passing the Teacher Eligibility Test would apply to minority educational institutes. A second question before the two-judge bench of Justices J.B. Pardiwala and Manmohan was whether clearing the test was a mandatory requirement for recruitment of new teachers and promotion of those already in service.
The court ruled that teachers aspiring for appointments and in-service teachers aspiring for promotions must qualify the TET. Otherwise, they will not be considered for candidature.
“It is reiterated that those aspiring for appointment and those in-service teachers aspiring for appointment by promotion must, however, qualify the TET; or else, they would have no right of consideration of their candidature,” the court said.
The court was acting on a batch of petitions filed by minority educational institutes that weren’t allowed to recruit teachers who had not cleared the TET.
Along with this, authorities like the state government of Maharashtra had also approached the court, claiming that qualifying the test was a mandatory requirement for elementary school teachers in their state, irrespective of whether the institute was minority-run or not.
Apart from these groups, even teachers appointed before the 2009 Act’s introduction claimed the requirement to clear the test could not be seen as mandatory for their promotion.
The court ruled that TET is not a “minimum qualification” under Section 23 of the RTE Act, but is “merely an eligibility test to assess teaching aptitude and should not be equated with a minimum qualification”. The provision couched under Section 23 provides for the minimum qualifications and terms and conditions of service of school teachers.
Since the Centre had notified the National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE) as the academic authority for prescribing teacher qualifications, the council released a notification in August 2010, requiring that teachers clear the TET.
This notification was the basis for the present challenge.
In a nutshell, the court said that minority educational institutes don’t operate in a vacuum, and the application of Article 30(1) of the Constitution, which allows linguistic and religious minorities the right to administer their educational institutes, is not absolute in nature.
However, invoking its powers under Article 142 of the Constitution, which allows the top court to do complete justice, it made an exception for teachers recruited much before the RTE Act came into effect, given that many had been in service for two or three decades.
“There are in-service teachers who were recruited much prior to the advent of the RTE Act and who might have put in more than two or even three decades of service. They have been imparting education to their students to the best of their ability without any serious complaint,” the court said while adding that dislodging such teachers from service on grounds that they have not qualified the test seemed “a bit harsh”.
Teachers with less than five years of service left were allowed to continue in service till the age of superannuation without qualifying the test. But still, the court clarified that if any of these teachers aspired for promotion, they would have to take the test.
The case dates back to a June 2023 judgment where teachers challenged in the Madras HC a 2010 NCTE notification saying that teachers teaching students of classes 1 to 8 must clear the test. Although the Tamil Nadu government amended this notification in 2011, the TET requirement remained.
The notification prompted the Tamil Nadu government to make the test mandatory for school teachers in the state. Before the court, the teachers argued that they were being denied promotions, while those who cleared the test were being promoted to higher posts.
The notification was challenged before various high courts including the Bombay HC and the Madras HC, by several teachers of non-minority institutes as well.
What is a review petition
Review petitions have been filed vis-à-vis many important Supreme Court rulings, including the Babri Masjid-Ram Janmabhoomi title suit, Sabarimala temple entry and the same-sex marriage case.
Under the Constitution, a Supreme Court judgment becomes the law of the land, final and serving as a precedent for future cases. However, the Constitution, under Article 137, allows the top court to review any of its judgments or orders, on specific grounds. These include grave errors in judgment which have resulted in a miscarriage of justice.
In a 2013 ruling, the top court laid down three main grounds for a review petition: discovery of new and important matter or evidence not known to petitioner earlier or could not be produced by him; errors apparent on the face of it; and “any sufficient reason”.
(Edited by Sugita Katyal)