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With respect, I find it difficult to agree
with Brother
Fazal Ali that these provisions are violative of
article 30(1). The question which one has to ask
oneself is whether in the normal course of
affairs, these provisions are likely to interfere
with the freedom of minorities to administer and
manage educational institutions of their choice.
It is undoubtedly true that no educational
institution can function efficiently and
effectively unless the teachers observe at least
the commonly accepted norms of good behaviour.
Indisciplined teachers can hardly be expected to
impress upon the students the value of discipline,
which is a sine qua non of educational excellence.
They can cause incalculable harm not only to the
cause of education but to the society at large by
generating a wrong sense of values in the minds of
young and impressionable students. But discipline
is not to be equated with dictatorial methods in
the treatment of teachers. The institutional code
of discipline must therefore conform to acceptable
norms of fairness and cannot be arbitrary or
fanciful. I do not think that in the name of
discipline and in the purported exercise of the
fundamental right of administration and
management, any educational institution can be
given the right to 'hire and fire' its teachers.
After all, though the management may be left free
to evolve administrative policies of an
institution, educational instruction has to be
imparted through the instrumentality of the
teachers; and unless. they have a constant
assurance of justice, security and fair play it
will be impossible for them to give of their best
which alone can enable the institution to attain
the ideal of educational excellence. Section
3(3)(a) contains but an elementary guarantee of
freedom from arbitrariness to the teachers. The
provision is regulatory in character since it
neither denies to the management the right to
proceed against an erring teacher nor indeed does
it place an unreasonable restraint on its power to
do so. It assumes the right of the management to
suspend a teacher but regulates that right by
directing that a teacher shall not be suspended
unless an inquiry into his conduct is contemplated
and unless the inquiry is in respect of a charge
of gross misconduct. Fortunately, suspension of
teachers is not the order of the day, for which
reason I do not think that these restraints which
bear a reasonable nexus with the attainment of
educational excellence can be considered to be
violative of the right given by Art. 30(1). The
limitation of the period of suspension initially
to two
months, which can in appropriate cases be extended
by another two months, partakes of the same
character as the provision contained in section
3(3)(a). In the generality of cases, a domestic
inquiry against a teacher ought to be completed
within a period of two months or say, within
another two months. A provision founded so
patently on plain reason is difficult to construe
as an invasion of the right to administer an
institution, unless that right carried with it the
right to maladminister. I therefore agree with
Brother Kailasam that sections 3(3)(a) and 3(3)(b)
of the Act do not offend against the provisions of
Art. 30(1) and are valid."