Lucknow: Allahabad high court has directed UP govt to extend pay parity and consequential service benefits to Special Teachers/Resource Teachers who teach children with special needs in govt schools. The court held that their contractual status cannot be used to deny them benefits available to corresponding regular teachers.HC directed govt to extend to the petitioners parity in pay scales and all consequential service benefits including annual increments, admissible leave benefits, maternity benefits wherever applicable and continuity of service.Passing the order, a Lucknow bench gave govt four months time to implement its directive.Justice Irshad Ali passed the order on the writ petition filed by Vipin Mishra and 23 others, who had been appointed as Itinerant Teachers and Resource Teachers through district level selection committees under govt orders and the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan. Though their appointments were described as contractual and their initial remuneration was fixed at Rs 6,000 per month, the petitioners claimed that they performed duties similar to the regular teachers.The petitioners had been working across various govt schools, imparting education to children with special needs and undertaking their assessment, rehabilitation, counselling and continuous monitoring. They possessed qualifications prescribed by the Rehabilitation Council of India and had continued to work for several years through successive renewals of their contractual arrangements.The dispute arose because, despite performing specialised educational duties for years, the petitioners were paid only a fixed honorarium while regular teachers performing comparable functions received regular pay scales and service benefits. The petitioners hence contended that the denial of parity amounted to discrimination under Articles 14 and 16 of the Constitution.The petitioners also relied on Clause 12.3 of the Integrated Education for Disabled Children (IEDC) Scheme, which specifically provided that Special Teachers should receive the same pay scales as teachers of the corresponding category in the State or Union Territory concerned. Considering this, the bench held that the state could not selectively implement the scheme by taking advantage of its benefits while ignoring provisions relating to the teachers’ service conditions.The court observed that the petitioners had not been engaged on a casual or sporadic basis. Their work continued uninterrupted for years and was essential to implementing inclusive education. It held that merely describing their appointments as contractual could not defeat constitutional guarantees when they possessed the requisite qualifications and discharged substantially similar duties as corresponding regular teachers.The court rejected govt’s argument that some petitioners had subsequently accepted fresh appointments and their earlier claims had therefore become infructuous. The bench held that subsequent appointments could not extinguish rights that had already accrued during the period they served under the earlier scheme.Importantly, the teachers had approached the HC only after their repeated representations to the competent authorities failed to secure parity in pay and service conditions. The court recorded that no effective steps were taken on their representations, compelling them to seek judicial intervention.
