Manipur High Court: Stay on cancellation of regularization

Manipur: The order issued by the Under Secretary (Education/S) of the government, which cancelled the decision to regularise the service of 502 ad-hoc teachers, was on Friday stayed till further orders by a single bench of Justice A Guneshwar Sharma of the Manipur High Court. The High Court also said that 230 out of the 502 ad-hoc teachers have been regularised, and said that the cancellation of their regularisation should be done in compliance with the directions of the High Court till further orders. During the hearing, counsel for petitioner advocate N Jotendro submitted that the impugned order dated October 10, 2024 issued by the Under Secretary (Education/S) of the Government of Manipur had cancelled the decision of the state government to regularise 502 ad-hoc teachers/graduate teachers. This cancellation was done on the allegation of irregularities including non-production of attendance registers of the 502 ad-hoc teachers to show that they were still in service at the time of their regularisation, it was submitted.

He submitted that the regularization of the petitioners and 230 others was done on the basis of the direction of the High Court contained in the order dated November 22, 2011. It was also submitted that the directions passed by the Single Judge in the batch of writ petitions and the contempt cases have attained finality and the regularization of the petitioners and others is in compliance with the direction of the High Court. However, the cancellation of regularization of 502 teachers including the petitioners who were regularized by the directions of the High Court is prima facie illegal and cannot be resorted to without modifying or cancelling the directions of the High Court.

It was also submitted that the regularization orders were cancelled without issuing any notice and without naming any of the employees who were regularized and it amounts to dismissal without any inquiry. It was also submitted that the impugned order is prima facie illegal and it is nothing but an act of circumventing the directions of the High Court and prayed that the impugned order be suspended. On the other hand, A.G. Lenin said that the state government has full power to correct the mistakes committed earlier and the impugned order is in exercise of such sovereign functions. It said that the prayer for interim order is liable to be rejected and the state is considering filing review/appeal/any appropriate application against the directions passed by the High Court on earlier occasions.