Mid-term transfer of teachers to remote areas stalled by court

Mumbai: The Bombay high court has stayed a government resolution of September 2017, which had proposed transfer of 9,000 primary teachers teaching in Zilla Parishad schools to remote areas where there was a shortage of teachers. The teachers through their organisation opposed the decision of the government on the grounds that it gives arbitrary powers to the government to transfer teachers and it was not possible for the teachers to move to those areas in between terms as they lacked amenities and facilities.

A division bench of justices B.R. Gavai and Sandeep Shinde was hearing a bunch of writ petitions filed by organisations representing primary teachers from various parts of the state. The petition stated that while an earlier government resolution on transferring teachers was issued in February 2017, the government came out with another resolution in September 2017 which was arbitrary, discriminatory and unreasonable. The petition also sought interim relief on the latest resolution.

Secretary of the Rural Development Department, Aseem Gupta told the court that “the February resolution was an elaborate policy intended to address the issue of paucity of teachers in remote areas. However, as the resolution was challenged at various benches of the high court, it was possible to implement it only in July 2017. In light of the protests and objections, the government decided to come out with a new resolution which stated that only those teachers who were never transferred would be transferred.”