Teachers’ association can’t espouse individual cause of members: HC

A Dharwad bench of the High Court has said that a teachers’ association cannot espouse the individual/personal cause of its members

The Dharwad bench of the High Court has said that a teachers’ association cannot espouse the individual/personal cause of its members. A division bench, headed by Justice Krishna S Dixit, observed this in a recent judgement while allowing the appeal filed by the University of Agricultural Sciences (UAS), Dharwad, in a matter pertaining to the recruitment of officers/teachers.

The UAS had challenged the December 4, 2021 order of a single-judge bench which had struck down the entire process of recruitment by allowing the petitions. The petitions were filed by the Association of Teachers Welfare and one Ramanagouda V Patil, a candidate who had taken part in the recruitment process but challenged the process subsequently. Observing that the November 28, 2018 order of the state government, directing the farm universities to adopt common yardsticks for the appointment of their officers, amounted to interference, the single-judge bench had given liberty to the UAS to initiate fresh recruitment exercises.

The division bench, however, said that what is suggested through the enclosures in the government order is similar to the recommendations of the high-level committee that have been duly considered by the Academic Council, the Board of Management and by the vice-chancellors. The bench also said that espousal of such causes by a teachers’ association is not shown to have been authorised by any statute like the Trade Unions Act, 1926, and Industrial Disputes Act, 1947, which provide for collective bargaining and espousal of individual causes of workmen.

“It is not that the member-teachers of the association are a vulnerable section of the society, who on their own could not come before the court to lay a challenge to the recruitment process. Nor are they poor and disabled and therefore espousal was warranted,” the bench said.

In regard to the other petitioner, Ramanagouda V Patil, the bench said “It is not his case that he did not know anything about the GO dated Nov 23, 2018, at the time he entered the election fray. When the recruitment process was halfway through, all of a sudden, wisdom dawned on him and he rushed to the Writ Court raising hue and cry.”

The court has directed the UAS-Dharwad to complete the recruitment process on a war footing, from the stage where it was interdicted by the single-judge bench order.