JUDGMENT
S.K. Jha, J.
1. The sole question for determination in this application under Articles 226 and 227 of the Constitution of India is as to whether the writ petitioner is entitled to invoke the provision of Section 4(2) of the Bihar Non Government Secondary Schools (Taking over of Management and Control) Act, 1982 (Bihar Act 33 of 1982) (hereinafter referred to as the Act). But before I come to that question the relevant facts.
2. In this application the petitioner has prayed for the issuance of a writ of mandamus or any other writ or a direction to the respondents commanding them to accord immediate approval of his services with effect from 19th February, 1983 and to pay to him the salary and other emoluments from that date.
3. The petitioner is an assistant teacher in High School, Kachharia within police station Chandil in the district of Nalanda. The petitioner asserts that he was appointed as an assistant teacher against the post of mathematics teacher on 1st September, 1981 by the Managing Committee of the aforesaid school. The other facts are not relevant. Only two dates need be taken into consideration Admittedly the petitioner was appointed as an assistant teacher by the erstwhile Managing Committee of the school on 1st September, 1981. Although a counter affidavit has been filed, this fact has not been denied. The only other relevant date is 19th February, 1983 on which date the school in question was taken over by the State Government under the provisions of the Act. That immediately brings us to the provision of Section 4(2) of the Act. Section 4 deals with the consequences of taking over of the management and control of the school and Section 4(2) of the Act reads thus:
The services of every Headmaster, teacher or other employees of the school taken over by the State government shall be deemed to have been transferred to the State government, with effect from the date of taking over of the school and become employees of the State government with such designation as the State government may determine.
From the plain and express language of the aforesaid statutory provision it is quite clear that from the date of taking over of the school the services of every teacher, headmaster or other employees of the school shall be deemed to have been transferred to the State government with effect from the date of taking over. Such teachers and employees ipso Jure become the employees of the State government.
The State government has been empowered only to give them such designation as it may determine. There is no further qualification. The provisions of Section 4(2) of the Act are not hedged in with any other limitation. It, therefore, must be held that Section 4(2) has rightly been presesed into service by the petitioner. All that it has been said in the counter affidavit of the respondents as has also been argued by learned Counsel for the State is that there is only one post of teacher in mathematics in the school and that is the reason why the petitioner is not being treated as a teacher of the school, since the incumbent of that solitary post is of a teacher who is much too senior to the petitioner. For all that I see, there can hardly be any justification for over ridding the statutory provision which by its legal fiction treats the teacher and employees of the erstwhile private school to be the teachers and employees under the State Government. Further that they shall ipso jure become employees of the State Government. The petition, therefore, must be allowed.
4. The writ application, accordingly, succeeds. Let a writ of mandamus issue to the respondent to treat the petitioner as a State Government employee and as a teacher of the Government school under the State Government. As a necessary corollary it follows that the petitioner must be paid his legal dues from 19th February, 1983 within a reasonable short time, preferably within six months from today. The petitioner shall be entitled to his cost from the respondents. Hearing fee assessed at Rs. 150 only.