The division bench of the Bombay High Court, comprising Chief Justice M B Shah and Justice Y S Jahagirdar has summarily dismissed an appeal recently filed by Adarsh Vidya Mandir Trust, Kurar Village, in Malad (East), refusing to stay an earlier order of the Deputy Municipal Commissioner, V W Joshi, who had held the termination order of the school management to be illegal and had directed the management to pay the teacher's salary.

The concerned teacher, Vasanti Umesh Srivastava, was appointed as an assistant teacher in the Hindi medium school on June 8, 1982. However, the school management ordered her suspension for an alleged `misconduct and insubordination' on December 20, 1993.

Thereafter began Vasanti's long, hard and lonely battle for justice. She challenged her suspension beforethe high court; and by an order dated March 21, 1994, Justice S N Variava directed that a fresh inquiry be held in the matter.

Accordingly an Inquiry Committee (IC) was set up and it served a chargesheet to the teacher. In her reply to the notice, Vasanti denied the allegations arguing that the charges were totally vague and false.

However, the IC submitted a report and came to the conclusion that the charges were proved and as per the said report, her services were terminated by the management.

In fact, the Education Officer of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) to whom an appeal was filed by the teacher, also agreed with the school management's decision and held that her dismissal was in order.

Vasanti filed an appeal before the DMC, V W Joshi, who gave a hearing to the teacher as well as the representatives of the management.

On June 9 this year, the DMC declared that the charges levelled against her were ``totally vague and the termination order was not justified''. Joshi thereforedirected the Adarsh Vidya Mandir Trust to reinstate Vasanti and also pay her the due salary, as per the rules.

In his order, Joshi also stated that if the school management refused to comply then it would be liable for appropriate action as per the grant-in-aid code.

However, an unyeilding management challenged the DMC's order in the high court by filing a petition before Justice A P Shah. The judge observed that the charges were vague and that it was impossible for any employee to meet such charges. Though Justice Shah admitted the petition, he refused to grant the stay on the order recently given by the DMC in favour of the teacher.

The school management finally went to the division bench, which summarily dismissed their appeal and upheld the order passed by Justice Shah.

A relieved Vasanti stands to gain over Rs 3.71 lakh by way of arrears. While advocates S J Panicker and Om Prakash Shukla appeared for the school management, the teacher was represented in the court by Shaun Wassoodew, asinstructed by M/s M P Vashi & Associates. Counsel A K Savla appeared for the BMC.