The State of Odisha vs. Sulekh Chandra Pradhan
Background
A group of Hindi teachers had been appointed directly by school management committees at government-aided Middle English (M.E.) Schools in Odisha around 1988-89, on posts that were never officially sanctioned by the government. When the state took over the M.E. schools in 1991, these Hindi teacher posts were excluded, and their services were effectively terminated. Over the next two decades a tangled series of government orders alternately promised to "adjust" (regularize) these teachers and then withdrew that promise, and the teachers were appointed, terminated, and reinstated multiple times through litigation, most recently being reinstated by the Odisha Administrative Tribunal in 2017-18 and that reinstatement being upheld by the Orissa High Court. The State of Odisha appealed to the Supreme Court.
Decision Breakdown
The Supreme Court held that the teachers' original appointments were void from the start because they were made directly by school managements without following the mandatory selection procedure under the Odisha Education Rules, 1974 (which require applying through a Selection Board), and only two teaching posts were ever officially sanctioned per M.E. School, not the Hindi teacher post these individuals held. It rejected the argument that the Rules didn't apply because the posts were "non-grant" positions, since the schools themselves were officially recognized aided institutions. The Court also found that the Tribunal had improperly ignored its own earlier, contrary rulings on the same issue (a breach of "judicial propriety"), and that the High Court's judgment showed a serious factual error, wrongly stating the teachers had worked over 20 years when in reality they had worked only about four years, much of that due to interim court orders. The Court also clarified that a mere dismissal of an earlier Special Leave Petition on a related matter does not mean the Supreme Court approved the High Court's reasoning. All appeals of the teachers were dismissed, and their reinstatement orders were set aside.
Lesson Learnt
An appointment to a government-aided institution's post that skips the legally mandated selection procedure is void from the outset, no matter how long informal arrangements or repeated administrative back-and-forth allow the appointee to continue working, and a earlier court's dismissal of an appeal without giving reasons does not by itself validate the lower court's reasoning for future cases.