29 Years of Service Cannot Be Undone: Allahabad HC Quashes Proceedings Against Teacher Over Shiksha Alankar Qualification
A Division Bench held that Section 16-E(10) power cannot be exercised after 29 years of continuous service, regularisation, and promotion, absent any fraud.
The High Court of Judicature at Allahabad, in a Special Appeal decided on 17 July 2026, has quashed proceedings initiated under Section 16-E(10) of the Intermediate Education Act against an LT grade teacher who had served continuously for 29 years, been regularised under the U.P. Secondary Education Services Selection Board Act, 1982, and thereafter promoted to Lecturer grade. The Division Bench of Hon'ble Saumitra Dayal Singh, J. and Hon'ble Swarupama Chaturvedi, J. held that the single judge's order dismissing the teacher's writ petition was contrary to the binding full bench decision of this Court in Dr. Asha Saxena v. Smt. S.K. Chaudhari and Others, which had specifically ruled that the power under Section 16-E(10) cannot be exercised after a lapse of nearly 17 years. With no allegation of fraud or concealment, and with the State itself having regularised and promoted the teacher, the bench found no basis to permit cancellation of appointment at the fag end of service.
The Appointment, Regularisation, and Belated Challenge
Devendra Kumar Agrawal held a Bachelor of Arts degree along with the additional qualification of Shiksha Alankar. On the belief that Shiksha Alankar was equivalent to a B.Ed. degree, he applied for appointment as an ad-hoc LT grade teacher at Sri Gandhi Smarak Inter College, Bajheda Bharatpur, District Aligarh. He was appointed on 28 July 1992.
After working for 21 years continuously, he was regularised in service under Section 33-C of the U.P. Secondary Education Services Selection Board Act, 1982, by an order dated 27 February 2013. On 3 April 2017, he was promoted to Lecturer grade. By 24 November 2021—29 years after original appointment—proceedings under Section 16-E(10) of the Intermediate Education Act were initiated against him. The trigger was a complaint by private respondent No. 6, alleging that the teacher had not held the essential qualification of B.Ed. at the time of his original engagement in 1992.
The litigation history runs deeper. On salary payment being denied at an earlier stage, the teacher had approached the court by Writ Petition No. 30125 of 1993. An interim order protected his working and directed salary payment. That writ petition was disposed of on 25 May 2004 with a direction to the Joint Director of Education, Aligarh, to deal with his regularisation claim under Section 33-C. Regularisation followed on 27 February 2013.
The Single Judge's Order and the Qualification Controversy
The single judge, by order dated 28 February 2025, disposed of the teacher's writ petition in Devendra Kumar Agrawal v. State of U.P. and 5 Others (2025:AHC:28081) without granting substantive relief. Relying on Dinesh Kumar Singh v. State of U.P. and Others (2024 SCC OnLine All 557), the single judge held that a Shiksha Alankar degree was not a valid qualification for appointment as an Assistant Teacher and that, accordingly, the petitioner's appointment was de hors the rules. No contrary view was taken, no interference was made with the impugned order, and no direction for recovery of salary was issued. The teacher was left at liberty to pursue legally permissible remedies if any recovery action were initiated.
The question whether Shiksha Alankar is equivalent to a B.Ed. degree had been settled adversely for teachers holding that qualification through a line of decisions. A coordinate bench in Surya Prakash Pandey v. State of U.P. and 5 Others (Special Appeal No. 244 of 2016, decided 8 August 2018) had found that Shiksha Alankar is not equivalent to B.Ed. A single judge in Vinod Kumar Upadhyay v. State of U.P. (2011 SCC OnLine All 1108) had gone further, directing the Secretary (Secondary Education) to forward orders to all District Inspectors of Schools and Regional Directors of Education to immediately remove from service all teachers appointed on the strength of a Shiksha Alankar degree granted by Rashtriya Patrachar Sansthan, Kanpur. That order attained finality. Most recently, the coordinate bench in Dinesh Kumar Singh had upheld termination of a teacher who had rendered 30 years of service, holding on the same qualification point that continuation was impermissible.
Against the single judge's order, Devendra Kumar Agrawal filed Special Appeal No. 212 of 2025 before the Division Bench.
Why the Division Bench Distinguished Dinesh Kumar Singh
Before the Division Bench, Senior Advocate V.K. Singh, assisted by Sri Bheem Singh, argued that even if the Shiksha Alankar-equivalence issue was settled against the teacher, the State could not undo 29 years of service without any allegation of fraud, concealment, or collusion. The State had not only paid salary but had positively regularised the teacher and then promoted him, all without objection to his original qualification.
Learned Standing Counsel Sri Girish Chandra Tiwari and Sri Vijay Kumar Ojha for the complainant relied on the finality of the qualification ruling and submitted that the coordinate bench in Dinesh Kumar Singh had already examined and rejected a delay argument in a substantially identical case involving 30 years of service.
The Division Bench acknowledged the force of the State's position. It accepted that the coordinate bench in Dinesh Kumar Singh had addressed a similar controversy and affirmed termination even after 30 years. It noted that had that been the only applicable law, the bench would either have followed it or referred the matter to a larger bench.
The bench then identified two factual distinctions. In Dinesh Kumar Singh, the power exercised by the State authorities was not referable to Section 16-E(10) of the Act. In the present case, the proceedings initiated on 24 November 2021 were specifically under that provision. That distinction mattered because the scope of challenge, and the legal constraints on the exercise of that power, differ accordingly.
The more telling distinction was the regularisation. In the present case, the State had regularised the teacher under Section 33-C of the Act of 1982 on 27 February 2013. The bench reasoned that when the State passed a positive regularisation order, it was expected to have applied its mind to the qualifications of the teacher at that time. No objection to his eligibility was raised at that stage. To allow the same issue to be raised eight years later—and then four years after promotion to Lecturer grade—was, the bench found, legally untenable.
The Binding Force of the Full Bench in Dr. Asha Saxena
The central legal anchor for the Division Bench was the full bench decision in Dr. Asha Saxena v. Smt. S.K. Chaudhari and Others (1990 SCC OnLine All 602). That case involved a challenge where the Regional Inspectress of Girls Schools had, after 17 years, referred appointments to the Director of Education under Section 16-E(10). The full bench had ruled that the power under Section 16-E(10) could not be exercised after such a long delay and had quashed the referral, holding that “the appointments which were existing for the last 17 years could not be set aside after a lapse of such a long period.”
The State argued before the Division Bench that the issue formally referred to the larger bench in Dr. Asha Saxena was different from the delay question dealt with in paragraph 20 of the report, and that the ratio on delay was therefore not binding. The Division Bench rejected this. It noted that paragraphs 6 and 21 of the full bench decision made clear that the writ petitions had been heard afresh on merits, and that the full bench had decided the petitions themselves, not merely the referred question of law. Since the writ petition was decided by the larger bench, the entire reasoning including the delay finding constitutes binding law.
On that basis, the bench held that Dinesh Kumar Singh—decided by a coordinate bench and, in the Division Bench's view, without reference to the binding full bench decision—could not bind it.
Precedents on Salary and Delay
The bench also considered the Supreme Court's decision in Radhey Shyam Yadav and Another v. State of U.P. and Others ((2024) 11 SCC 770), where abrupt stoppage of salary was set aside even in a case involving a shorter service period. The Supreme Court had observed in that decision that the State could not have abruptly stopped salaries where the appointments and approval orders remained in force and no malpractice by the appellants had been proved.
The bench found Jomon K.K. v. Shajimon P. and Others (2025 INSC 425) distinguishable because that case involved a candidate who had not actually worked over a long duration—the disqualification arose before actual service commenced. Similarly, Pramod Kumar v. U.P. Secondary Education Services Commission and Others ((2008) 7 SCC 153) was distinguishable because in that case, the teacher had been given an opportunity to obtain a proper degree, which he failed to avail, and disciplinary proceedings had been pending concurrently. No such facts existed in the present case.
The bench also made an observation on the broader question of State action in service matters. It noted that a citizen seeking employment is seeking a source of livelihood and a way to contribute to society. Where that citizen has not misled or practised fraud, permitting State agencies to undo decades of service in search of a legally correct outcome risks moving the law far from justice.
Outcome
The Division Bench found merit in the Special Appeal. The impugned order dated 28 February 2025 of the single judge was held to be erroneous in principle, being contrary to the law declared by the full bench in Dr. Asha Saxena. The order was accordingly quashed. The appeal was allowed.
The bench directed that, since the original petitioner-appellant was not completely at fault, he remains entitled to all consequential benefits. Those benefits are to be computed and paid within three months from the date of the order. No order as to costs was made.