Delhi HC asks Manish Sisodia, L-G to resolve guest teacher regularisation issue

The Delhi High Court on Tuesday came down heavily on Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia for his government's repeated attempts to regularise 17,000 guest teachers and its failure to resolve the issue of recruitment amicably with the L-G.

A bench of Justice Siddharth Mridul and Justice Deepa Sharma also asked the motive behind the regularisation of the guest teachers as the Delhi government has been ready to relax the rules for them.

This came after Sisodia, who was himself present during the proceedings on Tuesday, told the court that the removal of the guest teachers would negatively impact the education system. He said that several letters were written to the L-G but all of them went unanswered.

To this, the bench said that instead of dragging the issues to the court, they should have been amicably solved between the government and the L-G.

"There's a difference of opinion between L-G and education minister. Why can't you resolve it? Why bring it to court?" the court said.

"Is it too difficult to ask constitutional authorities to sit together? If the guest teachers have experience, they will score higher," the bench added.

The bench also rapped the government for its failure to fill in the vacancy of teachers and stated, "Since 2001, the government has not done anything to appoint teachers. You have been sitting on the orders".

The court's remarks came while hearing a plea challenging a single bench's order staying the DSSSB's notice withdrawing the process for the appointment of teachers.

The single judge had asked the authorities to issue a fresh advertisement calling for applications from eligible candidates by December 21 which shall be received latest by January 31. The single judge order had come on a contempt plea filed by NGO Social Jurist, through advocate Ashok Agarwal.

Following the proceedings on Tuesday, the court directed the L-G and education minister to sit together and resolve issues, thereby ensuring the appointment of teachers by August 31 as directed by Justice AK Chawla.

The next date of hearing is February 19.

What HC Said

A bench of Justice Siddharth Mridul and Justice Deepa Sharma asked the motive behind the regularisation of the guest teachers as the Delhi government has been ready to relax the rules for them
This came after Sisodia, who was himself present during the proceedings on Tuesday, told the court that the removal of the guest teachers would negatively impact the education system