The Supreme Court of India upheld the dismissal of a teacher, passing a landmark judgement on a special leave petition.
Describing the teacher as a ‘Goonda’ who assaulted the heasmaster of a school,upheld the order passed by the Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan dismissing him from service.
Setting aside a Rajasthan High Court judgement quashing the dismissal order, a Bench of Justice H.K.Sema and Justice Markandey Katju,expressed their inability to uphold the judgement of the Tribunal as well as the High Court.
While writing the judgement Mr.Katju said,’A teacher has to be a role model in the society.He is a ‘guru’to set an example for the students.A teacher physically assaulted a head master in my opinion is unfit to become a teacher.He is more like a goonda.Therefore, in our opinion there was no ground for the TRibunal or the High court to interfere with the dismissal order awarded to the concerned person.
In the instant case, Satbir Singh Mahla was working as a trained graduate teacher, in the Kendriya vidyalaya, Air Force,Suratgarh.On February, 23,1999, he physically assaulted the Principal of the school,R.D.Shah, in his office room which caused a serious injury in his right eye of Mr.Shah.Immediately, the Kendriya Vidyalaya conducted an enquiry and dismissed the teacher.When the teacher preferred a petition before the CAT, it reduced the punishment by awarding three increment cuts for a period of five years.On appeal, the High court upheld the punishment.When the Sangathan preferred a special leave petition before the Supreme court, it allowed the appeal and upheld the punishment of Sangathan by pronouncing the judgement as stated above.
But in my opinion, despite of the letter of apology tendered by the concerned teacher, the punishment awarded to the teacher is very harsh and after all he is a human and of course committed a blunder.When we just think about the future of the teacher after his dismissal, his future is almost bleak not to speak of his sufferings of isolation that he may get from the society, including his family members and his wards etc.The Supreme court had not considered his crime of assault from a criminal point of view.