NEW DELHI, June 8: The Punjab and Haryana High Court recently issued notice on the subject of school teachers' right to pension after retirement. The question was raised by the Haryana State Adhyapak Sangh representing teachers in Government-aided schools.

The issue is bound to have financial implications for school managements and for State governments which fund education. In Haryana itself, Chief Minister Bansi Lal's Government is strapped for funds with its policy of prohibition, without educating the masses against liquor consumption. But then the Supreme Court had, in the Ratnam Municipality Case in 1980, laid down that lack of finance was no reason for the State's non-implementation of fundamental rights. Hence teachers in Government-aided schools will keenly await the outcome of the pension battle in the Punjab and Haryana High Court.

The petitioner Sangh had raised the matter in the Supreme Court, through its counsel Pankaj Kalra. The apex court, after deciding other issues in favour of the Sangh, had permitted it to move the matter before the High Court. Kalra contended before the Court that under Article 21 of the Constitution, the right to livelihood was a guaranteed right. This right was not limited in time and must extend to the full span of a citizen's life. This is more so in the case of teachers who, while in employment, are prohibited by the law from engaging in any other job or profession. It follows that the present job must give them security for life. It is the State's responsibility to ensure this because school education is a subject under the control of State governments. The establishment and recognition of schools is a Government function.

The issue has attained more importance in the light of the Supreme Court judgment in the Unnikrishnan case, that primary education till the age of 14 was a fundamental right for all Indian children. Hence the State is simply discharging its constitutional and public duty of ensuring an educated and productive nation through schools under private managements but extensively funded by it. Moreover, if Government school teachers get pension, it cannot be denied to teachers discharging the same function in aided schools. Not only is the State, under a primary fundamental duty of Article 39 of the Constitution, bound to give equal pay for equal work, it is also required to minimise inequalities in income under Article 38(2). Article 41 states that the Government has to protect against undeserved want and under Article 38(1), to promote a social order in which justice social, economic and political shall inform all the institutions of national life.

Government-aided schools can definitely be termed as institutions of national life. The petition fundamentally raises issues of the economic priorities of the State in spending public money gathered through various taxes. The Union Government has not set a shining example in its budget for full implementation of the apex court's judgment in the Unnikrishnan case. Will the States do better? It is time all teachers' unions intervened for a national debate.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.