The Education Department told the Tribunal the school was not a minority institution and its own records said it was

Justice Sanjeev Narula restored a Vice-Principal's appeal against her 2017 termination, directed it be decided within four months, and ordered the school to pay her suspension-period dues in eight weeks.

Two connected petitions, one by a school and one by a teacher, were decided together on 13 October 2026. Between them they turn on a question the school and the Directorate of Education ought to have been able to answer without litigation: whether the school is a linguistic minority institution.

The answer governs a great deal. If it is, Section 8(2) of the Delhi School Education Act, 1973 does not require prior approval of the Directorate before a termination takes effect, and the requirements of Rules 118 and 120 of the Delhi School Education Rules about the constitution of the Disciplinary Authority and the prescribed procedure do not apply in the same way. The Delhi School Tribunal had set aside the termination precisely on those three grounds, proceeding on the basis that the school was not a minority institution.

Two positions from the same Directorate

The judgment records that the Directorate of Education has taken different positions at different stages. Before the Tribunal it proceeded on the basis that the school was not a minority institution. In the proceedings before the High Court, material was placed on record indicating that the school had been treated as a minority school in the Directorate's own records.

The Court called on the Directorate to explain the basis for its differing positions, and it filed an explanation. That explanation addressed the basis on which it had accepted the school's claim to linguistic minority status, the relevance of a 1982 judgment of this Court in Sindhi Education Society v. Director of Education, and the question whether a linguistic minority school in Delhi is required to possess a Minority Status Certificate at all — together with its present position on how such claims are considered.

Nine years of disciplinary proceedings

The teacher first joined the school in 1996 as an Assistant Trained Teacher and resigned in 2004. She applied again on an advertisement for the post of Post Graduate Teacher (History), was recruited, and was confirmed in that post with effect from 1 April 2010. She was promoted Vice-Principal in June 2013 and confirmed in July 2014.

Disputes with the management arose in 2015. The school issued show-cause notices to her in November 2015; she in turn made complaints against the Principal and members of the Managing Committee, and on one of those complaints an FIR was registered at Police Station Lajpat Nagar under Section 509 of the Indian Penal Code against, among others, the Principal. Further show-cause notices and disciplinary communications followed through 2016. She was placed under suspension in July 2016, and the termination dates from February 2017.

The second petition concerns that suspension period. The Directorate had passed an order on 28 March 2017 about what was payable for it, and the teacher's case was that the school had not implemented it.

What the Court decided, and what it deliberately did not

The first petition was allowed in part. The Tribunal's order of 22 December 2017 setting aside the termination was itself set aside, and the appeal restored to the Tribunal for a fresh decision.

The restoration comes with a direction about the premise. The Tribunal is to proceed on the basis that the school is an unaided linguistic minority institution. It is therefore not to invalidate the termination for want of prior approval under Section 8(2), for absence of the nominee of the appropriate authority under Rule 118, or for want of the Directorate's approval under Rule 120 — the three grounds on which it had decided the appeal the first time.

What survives for decision is everything else, and it is a substantial list. The Tribunal must decide the remaining grounds, including the objections concerning natural justice; the alleged participation of witnesses in the disciplinary decision-making; the furnishing of the enquiry report and the opportunity to respond to it; the manner in which the enquiry was conducted; the Inquiry Officer's findings; and the punishment imposed. It is to consider these independently, within the scope of Section 8(3) of the Act, without treating anything said in the judgment as an expression of opinion on their merits, and it may call for and examine the original disciplinary record including the recommendation of 4 February 2017.

In other words, the school has won the point about which legal regime applies and has won nothing at all about whether it dismissed its Vice-Principal fairly.

Timetables attached to both halves

Because the termination dates back to February 2017, the Court directed that the restored appeal be taken up on priority and, as far as practicable, decided within four months from the date the Tribunal receives the record, with the parties to cooperate and not seek avoidable adjournments.

The teacher's own petition was allowed outright. The school and its management must implement the directions in the Directorate's order of 28 March 2017 in respect of the suspension period. The amount payable is to be computed in accordance with that order after giving credit for the subsistence allowance and any other amount already paid for the same period, and the balance released to her within eight weeks of the judgment.

The Court was careful to separate that from what remains open. No opinion was expressed on her entitlement to wages or any other consequential benefit after 10 February 2017; that entitlement is to abide by the Tribunal's decision in the restored appeal and the applicable statutory framework. So she is paid now for the period she was suspended, and what she is owed for the nine years since the termination depends on whether the termination stands.

Mr Dinesh Agnani, senior advocate, with Mr Hemant Manjani and Mr Tarun Aswani appeared for the school; Mr Kuldeep Kumar and Mr Syed Nilofar Akhtar for the teacher, who also appeared in person; and Ms Latika Choudhary for the Directorate of Education. The judgment was reserved on 2 September 2026.