Pinnacle School teacher was never promoted to PGT, Delhi HC holds; Rs 8.36 lakh interim payout stays with her

Justice Sanjeev Narula set aside the May 2015 Director of Education order that found Bindu Khanna a TGT from 1994 and a PGT from 2006, sent her arrears claim back on a narrower footing, closed the contempt case, and refused to order restitution of the half deposit released to her in 2017.

A fifteen-year fight over one teacher’s pay at The Pinnacle School has ended, for now, with the Delhi High Court rejecting the two findings on which her claim was built. Justice Sanjeev Narula held that Bindu Khanna, who joined the school on 6 January 1994, was not appointed as a Trained Graduate Teacher that year and was never promoted to Post Graduate Teacher in April 2006, as the Director of Education had found in May 2015. The school’s records were a mess, the judge accepted, but read as a whole they supported its account: she began as an Assistant Teacher and entered the TGT grade in April 2003. The DoE order and the ₹16.72 lakh arrears figure built on it fell. Yet the court refused to make Ms Khanna repay the ₹8,36,131 released to her in December 2017, and sent the question of what she is actually owed under Section 10(1) of the Delhi School Education Act back to the Director for a narrower verification.

Three staff statements, three designations

The dispute reached the High Court first in 2011, when Ms Khanna filed W.P.(C) 2742/2011 seeking statutory salary and allowances under Section 10(1) of the Act, which requires recognised private schools to pay their staff no less than employees of corresponding status in government schools. On 16 September 2013 the court disposed of that petition after she confined her claim to the Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Pay Commission benefits. The school did not dispute that those applied; it said it had already paid. The DoE was told to examine both sides’ representations and pass a reasoned order.

The Additional Director of Education did so on 25 April 2014, fixing differential arrears at ₹16,72,262 by comparing her salary with that of a similarly placed TGT in a government school. The school challenged that in W.P.(C) 4059/2014. On 18 February 2015 the court, by consent, sent the matter back: the departmental file contained documents suggesting she had been appointed as an Assistant Teacher, not a TGT, and the DoE was to examine everything, including the staff statements, and pass a fresh speaking order.

The order that followed on 5 May 2015 went further than the first. Relying mainly on the school’s staff statements for 2001-02 and 2006-07 and an appointment letter dated 7 February 2006, the Director found that Ms Khanna had been appointed TGT from 6 January 1994 and promoted PGT from 1 April 2006, rejected the school’s explanation that the entries were mistakes, and directed payment of the differential within two weeks. The school filed W.P.(C) 6514/2015. Ms Khanna filed CONT.CAS(C) 78/2016 over non-compliance.

The staff statements, the school’s annual returns to the Directorate, did not tell one story. The 2001-02 return lists her as a TGT recruited on 6 January 1994 and confirmed a year later. The returns for 2002-03 to 2005-06 call her an Assistant Teacher. The 2006-07 return places her at serial number 5 among the PGTs, teaching English and Geography to Classes VII to XI at a basic pay of ₹6,725.

What the school and the teacher argued

Mr Kamal Gupta, appearing with Mrs Tripti Gupta, Mr Sparsh Aggarwal and Mr Siddharth Arora for the school, said the Director had read the returns selectively. Two letters went out on 7 February 2006: Letter No. 753, which the DoE treated as proof of a TGT appointment in 1994, had to be read with Letter No. 812 of the same date, which records her placement in the TGT grade from April 2003. Her own appraisal reports for 2007-08 to 2009-10, in her handwriting, describe her as TGT, and an earlier Directorate inquiry recorded TGT pay from 1 April 2003. On the PGT claim there was no promotion order, no Selection Committee recommendation and no compliance with Rule 96 of the Delhi School Education Rules, 1973; twelve years of service or eligibility under the Assured Career Progression scheme is not a promotion. In her 2011 petition she had claimed TGT arrears without mentioning a PGT promotion, though she says she got the 2006-07 return under RTI in May 2010. He relied on the Division Bench in Geeta Khanna v. Manager, Arvind Gupta DAV Centenary School, 2013:DHC:1131-DB, and on Rushibhai Jagdishchandra Pathak v. Bhavnagar Municipal Corporation, (2022) 18 SCC 144, and State of Uttaranchal v. Shiv Charan Singh Bhandari, (2013) 12 SCC 179, on stale claims. The school had deposited the full ₹16,72,262 with the Registry, could not pay twice, and wanted a refund and restitution of the half released to her.

Ms Khanna argued in person. The school, she said, could not disown its own statutory returns: the 2001-02 statement recorded her as a TGT recruited through selection, and the 2006-07 statement put her among the PGTs with subjects and classes spelt out. Letter No. 753, issued under a covering letter of 8 February 2006 saying it replaced the earlier appointment letter, referred to her appointment from January 1994 in the TGT scale of ₹5,500-9,000. She disputed the undated letter the school relied on and alleged that entries had been filled in after her signatures were taken. On completing twelve years in 2006 she was promoted PGT under the ACP scheme; the school never told her, and she learnt of it through RTI in 2010. She also said the school had used its staff representations to win senior-secondary upgradation, and raised complaints about the Managing Committee and the school’s finances.

A 2006 letter that calls her only a Teacher, and does not say what the DoE read into it

Justice Narula started with the framework. Rule 96 provides for recruitment through the prescribed Selection Committee and Rule 98 makes the Managing Committee the appointing authority; an appointment or promotion must have a foundation in that process, and financial upgradation is not appointment to a higher post. Geeta Khanna had held that an erroneous designation in a staff statement cannot, without appointment, confer a right to the post. The returns were relevant contemporaneous evidence that could not be waved away as errors, but they did not conclusively prove the posts or dates in them; they had to be weighed against the appointment, service and salary records.

The Director had not done that. He relied on the 2001-02 return, observing that there was “not a single mistake in filling the particulars”, but did not account for the contrary entries in the later returns or examine the school’s case that she entered the TGT scale only in April 2003.

The February 2006 correspondence got the closest reading. Letter No. 753 is headed as an appointment letter for the post of Teacher with effect from 6 January 1994, refers to her application and interview of that date, and offers her the post of a Teacher at ₹6,550, described as her present basic, in the scale of ₹5,500-175-9,000. The covering letter of 8 February 2006 explains that the Director had required the school to issue appointment letters conforming to the Act and Rules, and that the new letter replaced the old. From this the DoE concluded that she was a TGT from 1994. That does not follow, the judge said: the letter calls the post only Teacher, and a pay scale quoted in 2006 as the present basic cannot by itself establish the post she held twelve years earlier.

Letter No. 812, issued the same day, states that she was appointed as Assistant Teacher in the scale of ₹4,500-125-7,000 from 1 April 1997, that in April 2003 she was placed as TGT in the scale of ₹5,500-175-9,000 at a basic of ₹6,000, and that her basic from 1 April 2005 was ₹6,550. That separates her initial appointment from her later placement in the TGT scale and explains the ₹6,550 in Letter No. 753. It has its own problems: the April 1997 start date contradicts her admitted joining in January 1994, and the returns for 2003-04 to 2005-06 kept calling her Assistant Teacher after the stated move to the TGT scale. Those inconsistencies needed reconciling. The Director had not attempted it.

A ₹175 increment and her own appraisal forms

The PGT claim fared no better. The 2006-07 return was its main support, and the Director had thought its particulars too specific to be a mistake, noting a warning the Education Officer issued to the school on 3 December 2010 for inconsistent information. But on a later inspection the school’s explanation of “human error” was accepted. The salary figures pointed the other way: ₹6,725 is ₹175 more than ₹6,550, the increment in the TGT scale, whereas the PGT scale of ₹6,500-200-10,500 carries an increment of ₹200. Teaching up to Class XI does not make a teacher a PGT. There was no promotion order, no Managing Committee decision and no selection against a PGT vacancy. Twelve years of service might earn financial upgradation under the ACP scheme; it is not a promotion.

Her own records settled it. In a request for an experience certificate dated 8 May 2006 she described herself as a permanent TGT and class teacher of the seventh standard. Her appraisal report for 2007-08 records her designation as TGT from April 2003 by reference to Letter No. 812, gives 6 January 1994 as her date of initial appointment and bears a signature in her name; the reports for 2008-09 and 2009-10 also say TGT. Even accepting that she did not know of any promotion until 2010, that does not establish there was one. Manjeet Singh v. State of NCT of Delhi, 2006:DHC:7730, which the DoE had cited, concerned a teacher expressly appointed as a Physical Education Teacher whose management later tried to confine her to the primary section; it did not help where the dispute was the original designation and an alleged promotion that could not be read off one letter. Nor was there material showing the school had won senior-secondary upgradation by representing her as a PGT.

The evidence as a whole, the court concluded, did not sustain the Director’s findings. The appointment correspondence, the salary progression and the contemporaneous service records supported the school: Assistant Teacher at the start, TGT grade from April 2003.

The arrears figure falls, but the Section 10(1) question survives

The 2014 computation had arrived at ₹47,60,187 payable against ₹30,87,925 paid, giving arrears of ₹16,72,262; Ms Khanna had claimed ₹17,40,532 on statements assuming TGT pay from 1994 and PGT pay from 2006, and the 2015 order accepted those designations without recalculating. That computation could not stand. But its fall did not answer whether the school had paid what Section 10(1) required. A supplementary inspection report recording TGT pay from 1 April 2003 and Sixth Pay Commission benefits was relevant but no substitute for verifying what was due and paid. Delay did not foreclose that limited exercise: Union of India v. Tarsem Singh, (2008) 8 SCC 648, treats incorrect pay fixation as a recurring cause of action, though recovery may be restricted, ordinarily to three years before the writ petition.

Nor did the earlier appellate orders stand in the way. The Division Bench in LPA 276/2016, on 29 November 2016, had upheld the direction to implement the DoE order in contempt proceedings while saying expressly that the underlying dispute had not been decided on merits; the order of 26 September 2017 in LPA 281/2017 dealt with interim deposits. Ms Khanna’s wider allegations about the school’s management and record-keeping did not alter the findings; any regulatory irregularity had to be pursued under the statutory framework.

Contempt closed, costs preserved, restitution refused

The contempt petition traced back to an order of 27 May 2015 in CONT.CAS(C) 13/2015 directing compliance within six weeks, failing which ₹50,000 in costs would be payable to Ms Khanna. The school deposited the ₹16,72,262 with the Registry only later, under subsequent orders; on 29 November 2017 the court allowed half to be released to her against an indemnity bond, and ₹8,36,131 went out on 11 December 2017. Citing Prithawi Nath Ram v. State of Jharkhand, (2004) 7 SCC 261, the judge reiterated that an order must be obeyed while it stands. The contempt court had found on 18 December 2018 that the deposit came late and ordered the ₹50,000 paid; that direction survived. With the principal deposited, the DoE order gone and the delay already punished with costs, no further action in contempt was warranted.

On the ₹8,36,131, the school invoked South Eastern Coalfields Ltd. v. State of M.P., (2003) 8 SCC 648: a party who benefits from an interim order must restore the advantage if the final decision does not support it. The judge noted that the same decision allows restitution to be declined where it would defeat justice, and found this such a case. Ms Khanna’s claim rested on documents the school itself issued; the confusion was not of her making. The money had been released under a court order and had been with her for nearly nine years. The school’s own delay had drawn a costs order. And setting aside the DoE order did not establish that nothing was owed to her. Requiring repayment would be inequitable even if the verification showed a smaller entitlement. The court stressed that this was confined to the peculiar facts and was not a recognition of the higher status she claimed.

Order

W.P.(C) 6514/2015 was allowed and the DoE order of 5 May 2015 set aside. The school must give the DoE an itemised due-and-drawn statement within six weeks, computed on service as Assistant Teacher from January 1994 and TGT grade from April 2003; Ms Khanna has four weeks to point out discrepancies and the school two weeks to respond; the DoE must then pass a reasoned order within twelve weeks, giving credit for payments made and without reopening the 1994 TGT and 2006 PGT findings. The Registry is to report the amounts deposited, disbursed and held within two weeks and keep the balance invested. Arrears found due carry simple interest at 6% a year from the dates they fell due; the earlier 5% direction was interlocutory. The ₹8,36,131 already released is to be adjusted against verified arrears, with no recovery if it exceeds them. Four weeks after the DoE communicates its determination, unless stayed, the Registry is to pay Ms Khanna the amount found due and refund the rest to the school; any shortfall is for the school to pay within four weeks. The ₹50,000 costs of 18 December 2018 remain payable unless already paid. CONT.CAS(C) 78/2016 was disposed of. Separate orders on Ms Khanna’s suspension, termination, reinstatement or back wages are untouched. The matter was reserved on 24 September 2026 and pronounced on 27 October 2026.