HYDERABAD: Engagement of staff or employees in every private unaided educational institution cannot be said to be a public function. It is a purely private arrangement made by the said institution to carry out its aims and objectives, the High Court has held.
Justice MS Ramachandra Rao has recently dismissed a petition filed by Mohan and 19 others challenging their termination of services by the management of Raja Mahendra Engineering College in Rangareddy district.
The petitioners contended that the termination of their services without any reason or cause while failing to pay their salaries on the pretext that the college was being closed was unreasonable and in violation of the right to employment and in breach of Article 14, 19 and 21 of the Constitution.
The judge said that every society or institution imparting education and discharging a public duty was not amenable to writ jurisdiction of the High Court under Article 226 of the Constitution. The writ would lie only where a public function breach was alleged. In the present case, the college was not a deemed university and the provisions of University Grants Commission Act did not apply to it, he noted.
“Merely because imparting education is a public function, it cannot be said that engagement of employees for the said purpose is also a public function. It is purely a private arrangement made by the Society with the petitioners and so the rights claimed by the petitioners are pure of a private character and relief under Article 226 of the Constitution cannot be granted to them,” the judge pointed out.
“If the petitioners’ contention is accepted, it would open the flood gates and every dispute in every private unaided school/college between its management and academic staff would then be brought before the High Court for judicial review,” the judge said while dismissing the case.