Himachal High Court: No jurisdiction to enforce service contracts in pvt schools

Legal Correspondent

Shimla, June 30

The Himachal High Court is not empowered to exercise jurisdiction under Article 226 of the Constitution to enforce service contracts between the employees and the managements of private unaided educational institutions for the want of involvement of public law element. The High Court held this while hearing a batch of petitions filed in this regard by the teachers and the managements of private schools.

A Division Bench comprising Chief Justice MS Ramachandra Rao and Justice Satyen Vaidya observed that “unless there is the involvement of a public law element, a writ to enforce private service contracts between the employees and the managements of private unaided educational institutions could not be issued. For the determination of the involvement of such public law element, the private service contracts need be under some control of the government backed by legislation, rules/regulations or at least executive instructions or the Act cited must have a direct nexus with the discharge of public duty. In cases in hand, we have not come across any material to infer the existence of public law element in private contracts in question.”

The issue for determination before the court relates to the jurisdiction of the court under Article 226 of the Constitution in the matters arising out of service contracts between the employees and the management(s) of private unaided educational institutions.

While disposing of the petitions, the court observed that “the advisory or directives to the state functionaries have also been found to be on paper. In fact, no such rules/regulations controlling the domain of service contracts between the employees and the managements of the private unaided educational institutions have been found to exist. The mere fact that the private unaided educational institutions have affiliation to the CBSE or any other instrumentality of the state, cannot be the determining factor of the involvement of public law element.”