High Court orders full probation period salary to over 5K teachers

Following the instructions of Punjab and Haryana High Court, the office of Director School Education (DSE), has asked all District Education Offices in the state to release full salary of 5,178 master cadre teachers for their probation period.

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The DEOs will now ask the school heads to do the needful in this regard.

During the hearing of a civil original contempt petition of Deep Raja vs state of Punjab, the High Court fixed a time limit of six weeks for the implementation of the order.

Master cadre teachers serving in government schools of the state will get full salary for the two-year probation period.

Following the court’s directions, DSE (SE) has issued an order on the release of full salary of 5,178 teachers.

Elated over the court directions and taking their struggle to a logical end, Deep Raja, the union leader from Ludhiana district, and other leaders, including Ashwani Kumar and Baljinder Kumar said after intense struggle, the teachers had got justice at last.

It may be mentioned here that the teacher recruitment advertisement came in September 2012 and the teachers received the appointments in December 2014.

“According to the terms of the appointment letter, after successfully completing three years of contractual service, we were to be regularised on full salary with effect from November 2017. But in March 2019, the Congress government imposed a two-year probation on these departmental teachers, depriving them on the right to full salary and regularised them on less salary. The teachers were constantly struggling for the rightful demands of full salary and regularisation and now we have finally got justice,” said Deep Raja.

Taking legal action regarding their legitimate demands, Deep Raja filed a civil writ petition against the state government in February 2020 through a lawyer of service matter.

On May 1, 2024, the High Court ruled in favour of the teachers and issued final orders for issuance of full salary arrears to 5,178 teachers for the probation period.

Raja said contempt petitions were filed by them in November 2024, following which the court gave strict orders to the department to submit a compliance report on February 27.

Adhering to the court orders, the department submitted its compliance report. During the hearing, the court set a time limit of six weeks for releasing the financial benefits to the teachers in the state.