Private school teachers entitled to gratuity, rules Supreme Court

Satya Prakash

New Delhi, August 31

Upholding a 2009 amendment to the Payment of Gratuity Act, 1972, the Supreme Court has ruled that the benefit of gratuity would extend to teachers, including those employed in private schools.

“The amendment with retrospective effect remedies the injustice and discrimination suffered by the teachers on account of a legislative mistake, which was understood after the pronouncement of the judgment in Ahmedabad Private Primary Teachers’ Association. The amendment was necessary to ensure that something which was due and payable to the teachers is not denied to them due to a defect in the statute,” a Bench led by Justice Sanjiv Khanna said.

The Bench – which also included Justice Bela M Trivedi — ordered private schools to pay employees/teachers gratuity with interest in terms of the Act in six weeks.

The order came on a petition filed by Independent Schools’ Federation of India (Regd.) challenging the validity of the amendment.

Earlier, the top court had in Ahmedabad Private Primary Teachers’ Association versus Administrative Officer & Others (2004) ruled that teachers were not “employees” as defined under the Act as they were not performing any skilled, unskilled, semi-skilled, manual, supervisory, managerial, administrative, technical or clerical work.

The Act was later amended by Parliament to include teachers under the definition of “employees” in Section 2(e) of the Act and the amendment was given retrospective effect to ensure that teachers were not denied something due to them under a welfare piece of legislation.

“When the legislature acts within its power to usher in a valid law and rectify a legal error, even after a court ruling, the legislature exercises its constitutional power to enact the law and does not overrule an earlier court decision,” the top court said. “The amendment with retrospective effect is to make the benevolent provisions equally applicable to teachers. The amendment seeks to bring equality and give fair treatment to the teachers. It can hardly be categorised as an arbitrary and high-handed exercise,” it noted.