CUTTACK: The Orissa High Court has directed the state government to extend the benefit of grant-in-aid under GIA Order, 1994 to unaided schools, girls’ schools or higher secondary schools and colleges, if their cases were recommended by the respective directorates prior to repealing of the GIA Order 1994 in 2004.
The single judge bench of Justice Biraja Prasanna Satapathy issued the direction on Wednesday in a common order on a batch of over 100 appeals filed against the orders of State Education Tribunal (SET). The appeals filed during 2010-23 were regarding entitlement of the employees working in different educational institutions to receive grant-in-aid as admissible under GIA Order, 1994.
The appeals included those filed by the state government in the cases in which the SET had allowed the claim of aided educational institutions in GIA applications, and appeals filed by the employees/educational institutions in cases in which the SET had rejected their GIA applications.
The GIA Order-1994 provided full grants by the state government for eligible teaching and non-teaching employees of private educational institutions towards their salary and other dues. It was repealed and a new order was introduced on February 5, 2004. The GIA Order-2004 provided partial grants for employees of private educational institutions instead of full grants.
In the March 19 judgment, Justice Satapathy dismissed the appeals wherein claim of the employees and/or institutions were granted by the Tribunal and quashed the impugned judgments in cases in which claim of the employees and/or institutions were rejected by the Tribunal.
However, Justice Satapathy clarified, “Such dismissal and allowing of the appeals is with the condition that, claim of the concerned employees and/or institutions in the present batch of appeals will be subject to verification to be made by the concerned directorate dealing with the issue.”
He directed the authorities to complete the entire exercise within a period of six months from the date of receipt of the order.