JUDGMENT
T.S. Thakur, J.
1. This Letters Patent Appeal arises out of an order passed by a learned Single Judge of this Court whereby a writ petition filed by the appellant for a writ of mandamus seeking parity in emoluments with those working in Government schools has been dismissed.
2. The appellant retired as Principal of a Government school after attaining the age of superannuation way back in the year 1984. She appears to have approached Respondent No. 5 school and offered to render voluntary service which request the school accepted and the appellant allowed to join on a mutually agreed honorarium payable to her on a monthly basis. She continued working for the school for nearly 9 years in that capacity during which period the honorarium payable to her was revised from time to time to take the same to Rs. 5,500/- per month on the date she stopped associating with the school in July, 1994. More than 7 years later, she filed a writ petition in this Court inter alia for a mandamus directing Respondents No. 2 to 4 to ensure compliance with Section 10 of the Delhi School Education Act, 1973 and the Rules framed there under. A mandamus directing Respondent No. 5 school to release the alleged retiral dues, arrears of salary and other consequential benefits with interest @ 24% p.a. was also prayed for.
3. The petitioner’s case in the writ petition was that after her retirement from Government Senior Secondary School, Chirag Delhi, she was appointed as Principal of the respondent No. 5 school in terms of a certain policy under which re-employment is granted to retired Government School Principals. She further alleged that at the time of her employment with the respondent school, she was told that issues relating to fixation of her pay scale and emoluments was under the active consideration of the Management and that immediately upon settlement of the same, the petitioner would be given an appropriate pay scale retrospectively with effect from the date she had joined. In the meantime, she was persuaded to accept Rs. 2000/- per month. The petitioner’s further case is that the emoluments had been revised from time to time to take the consolidated sum payable to her to Rs. 5,500/- per month. Her grievance in that background was that she had been representing to the School for release of her retiral benefits and for arrears of salary which representations had fallen flat on the respondents leaving no option for her except to approach the Court for an appropriate redressal. Reliance was placed by her upon the provisions of Section 10 of the Delhi School Education Act, which according to the petitioner, enjoined upon the Appropriate Authority to direct the Managing Committee of the respondent School to pay to the petitioner the same emoluments and grant the same benefits as were available to the employees of the School run by such Authority.
4. The petition was contested by the respondents not only on the ground that the same was barred by unexplained delay and laches but also on the ground that there was no question of extending to the petitioner the benefit of Section 10 of the Act aforementioned as there was no relationship of employer and employee between the school and the petitioner. It was also urged that Section 10 had no application to a case where the schools run by the appropriate authority did not have an employee of a comparable status. It was submitted that the provisions of Delhi School Education Act, 1973 and the Rules framed there under did not permit the employment of retired employees whether from Government or aided schools nor was a legal relationship between a superannuated employee and a Government aided/recognized school possible in the face of the rules regulating employments in such schools.
5. The learned Single Judge, before whom the petition was argued, dismissed the same by the order impugned in this appeal primarily on the ground that there was no parity between an employee working in a school run by the appropriate authority on a regular basis and that working in a Government aided school after his or her retirement from service. It was also held that the writ petition having been filed more than 7 years after the petitioner had stopped working in the respondent school was clearly barred by laches, especially when the claim made by the petitioner was no more than a monetary claim for payment of what she considered to be her rightful emoluments including allowances etc.
6. Appearing for the appellant, Mr.Datar strenuously argued that the learned Single Judge was in error in dismissing the writ petition on the twin grounds indicated above. He drew our attention to the provisions of Section 10 of the Delhi School Education Act, 1973 to urge that the Appropriate Authority was under an obligation to ensure parity of pay scales and emoluments between employees working in the schools run by the Appropriate Authority and those working in Government aided schools. Inasmuch as the Appropriate Authority had, according to the learned Counsel, failed to take note of the disparity evident in the present case, it had failed in its duty which a writ court could and ought to enforce by issuing an appropriate mandamus.
7. Before we deal with the submission urged on behalf of the appellant, we need to mention two aspects that which bear relevance to the controversy at hand. In the first place, the petitioner’s version that she was employed pursuant to a certain policy which permitted retired employees to be engaged by aided schools has remained unsubstantiated. Neither before the learned Single Judge nor before us has the appellant produced any document to suggest that there existed any such policy. The second aspect that is equally significant is that the petitioner has neither produced any order of appointment as Principal of the respondent school nor any other document to show that her engagement as Principal post retirement was either based on any selection process or otherwise authorised under the Act and the Rules aforementioned. As a matter of fact, even according to the appellant, no appointment order was issued in her favor let alone an agreement stipulating the terms and conditions of the employment executed. The absence of any material to substantiate either the existence of any policy or the selection process on the basis whereof the appellant claims to have been appointed to the post, it is difficult to hold that the appellant had indeed been appointed on a regular basis as Principal of the School or that any assurance was extended to her regarding settlement of her emoluments at any future date. If that be so, we are inclined to accept the version of the respondent that it was the appellant who had offered her service to the school to keep herself busy and occupied and on receipt of an honorarium which was revised from time to time. There was in that view no relationship of an employer and an employee between the school and the appellant in the true sense. That apart, the provisions of the Delhi School Education Act and the Rules there under do not permit the schools employing on a regular basis retired employees who have attained the age of superannuation. There is no gainsaying that in Schools aided by the Government, appointments are also regulated by the authorities and adherence to the selection and other procedures prescribed by statutory rules is more often than not made a condition precedent for release of the aid or continuance of recognition.
8. In the light of what we have stated above, the appellant’s case that her service conditions were regulated by Section 10 of the Act must be rejected out of hand. Even assuming that Section 10 would apply to cases where the appointments are made in the circumstances and on terms referred to earlier, the question would be whether the person so appointed can claim parity with a regularly appointed Principal in a Government school. Section 10 of the Act may, at this stage, be extracted:
10. Salaries of employees
(1) The scales of pay and allowances, medical facilities, pension, gratuity, provident fund and other prescribed benefits of the employees of a recognised private school shall not be less than those of the employees of the corresponding status in school run by the appropriate authority:
Provided that where the scales of pay and allowances, medical facilities, pension, gratuity, provident fund and other prescribed benefits of the employees of any recognised private school are less than those of the employees of the corresponding status in the schools run by the appropriate authority, the appropriate authority shall direct, in writing, the managing committee of such school to bring the same up to the level of those of the employees of the corresponding status in schools run by the appropriate authority:
Provided further that the failure to comply with such direction shall be deemed to be non-compliance with the conditions for continuing recognition of an existing school and the provisions of section 4 shall apply accordingly.
(2) The managing committee of every aided school shall deposit, every month, its share towards pay and allowances, medical facilities, pension, gratuity, provident fund and other prescribed benefits with the Administrator and the Administrator shall disburse, or cause to be disbursed, within the first week of every month, the salaries and allowances to the employees of the aided schools.
9. A close reading of the above would show that the same aims to ensure parity between employees working in a recognized private school and those working in the schools run by the Appropriate Authority in the matters of scales of pay and allowances, medical facilities, pension, provident fund, gratuity etc. What is however, significant is that parity has to be between employees of the same status working in two schools. This is evident from the use of the expression ’employees of the corresponding status’ appearing in sub-section (1) and the proviso to the same. In other words, before the protection of Section
10 in matters relating to scales of pay and allowances, medical facilities etc. can be invoked by an employee working in a recognized private school, he/she must establish that he/she holds a status similar to the one held by the employee working in the school run by the Appropriate Authority with whom he/she seeks parity. The term ‘status’ has not been defined in the Act. We shall therefore have to draw on the dictionary meaning of that word to understand its true purport. Black’s Law Dictionary gives the following meaning to the word ‘status’ :
Standing; state or condition; social position. The legal relation of individual to rest of the community. The rights, duties, capacities and incapacities which determine a person to a given class. A legal personal relationship, not temporary in its nature nor terminable at the mere will of the parties, with which third persons and the state are concerned. Holzer v. Deutsche Reichsbahn Gesellschaft 159 Misc. 830 : 290 N.Y.S. 181, 191. While term implies relation it is not a mere relation.
10. The respondents have, on affidavits, stated that Government schools do not have retired employees working after superannuation as Principal. That being so, the question of comparing the service condition of the appellant with a Principal regularly appointed in a Government School does not arise. It is only if the Delhi School Education Act and the Rules or any scheme framed there under permitted employment of retired teachers/principals in the school that the terms on which such re-employment was granted could be extended to employees similarly engaged or re-employed in recognized private schools. Parity, it is elementary, can be only between equals. No parity can, in our view, be drawn between an employee who is working on a regular basis in a Government institution and another employee who has been re-employed after his superannuation especially when the terms of such re-employment are more than often not less attractive than those applicable to regularly appointed incumbents. In the circumstances, we see no merit in the contention urged on behalf of the appellant on the touchstone of Section 10 of the Act aforementioned.
11. Equally untenable is the contention urged by Mr.Datar that since the appellant had been making representations, the delay of nearly 8 years between the date when the appellant first had the cause of action to file the petition and the date when the petition was filed stood explained. Just because successive representations are made for years on end does not necessarily mean that the aggrieved person is acting diligently. The aggrieved person cannot keep hoping against hope and delay approaching the court indefinitely. A writ court is not bound to entertain a stale claim for adjudication. Due diligence on the part of the petitioner is a condition precedent for the exercise of the extra ordinary writ jurisdiction of the court. If the appellant indeed was wronged on account of refusal of salary for nearly 9 years during which she served the school, there was no reason why she should have waited for another 7 years thereafter before coming to the Court to seek redress. The learned Single Judge could have, in that view, passed no order other than the one passed by him in the present case. This appeal accordingly fails and is hereby dismissed but in the circumstances without any orders as to costs.
