Madras HC: Implement biometric attendance for teachers, students

Chennai: In order to protect the interest of both the aided institutions and the government/public exchequer in the matter of availability of surplus teachers, the Madras high court has issued a set of directions to be followed by the government and the aided schools.

Passing orders on a petition from a teacher, a division bench comprising Justices N. Kirubakaran and S.S. Sundar said since there is a likelihood of boosting the students strength of the aided schools for the purpose of getting more teachers, the government is directed to implement the bio-metric attendance of the students studying in the aided schools as well as the teachers employed in aided schools.

There shall be not be any fresh appointment from today in private aided schools till the surplus teachers in other schools coming under the same management are exhausted, the bench added.

The bench said the government shall not approve any appointment made by the private aided schools, till the surplus teachers in the schools coming under the same management were exhausted. There was no prohibition for approval of teachers where concerned teachers or management obtained orders from this court which reached finality for grant of approval, the bench added.

The bench said in case an appeal or review has been preferred as on date, it was open to the appellants to contest the cases on merits. Wherever, there was no dispute with regard to existence of surplus teachers, it was open to the appellants to deploy those teachers wherever, it was required viz., in other aided schools.

In cases, where the minority school was a single school and there was no question of getting surplus teachers from other schools in the same management, it was open to the school authorities to approach the educational authority well in advance, so that the educational authority will be able to deploy the eligible teachers. Such deployment of eligible teachers from any other school should satisfy the eligibility criteria as prescribed by the Tamil Nadu Recognised Private Schools (Regulation) Act, the bench added and posted to April 15, further hearing of the case.