Patna HC Upholds Writ Against Minority School's Dismissal Order, Cites Breach of Bihar 1981 Act Approval Requirement
Justice Alok Kumar Sinha ruled that a teacher's writ petition against suspension and dismissal by a minority aided school is maintainable where statutory approval under the Bihar Non-Government Secondary Schools Act, 1981 was allegedly bypassed.
The Patna High Court has held that a writ petition filed by a teacher against her suspension and subsequent dismissal by a minority aided school is maintainable under Article 226 of the Constitution, provided the challenge rests on alleged breach of statutory provisions—not merely breach of an ordinary contract of service. Justice Alok Kumar Sinha, sitting singly, delivered the ruling on 2 July 2026 in a case where the petitioner, Abha Rani, an Assistant Teacher at Plus 2 Arya Kanya Uchaya Vidyalaya, Khagaria, challenged her suspension and dismissal orders on the ground that neither carried the mandatory approval of the Director of Secondary Education, Government of Bihar, as required under the Bihar Non-Government Secondary Schools (Taking over of Management and Control) Act, 1981, as amended in 2011. The court rejected the school's maintainability objection in clear terms, but confined the future hearing on merits strictly to the statutory breach ground.
The Teacher's Service History and the Competing Managing Committees
Abha Rani was appointed as an Assistant Teacher at the school in 1987 after following the prescribed selection process. Her appointment was approved by the then-competent Service Board under Section 18(3)(b) of the 1981 Act. Over nearly four decades, she received all service-related benefits including pay revisions extended to teaching staff of minority aided schools by the State Government.
The controversy arose not from any dispute between the petitioner and the school management over her performance, but from an internal conflict between two rival managing committees of the same school, each claiming authority through different modes. Abha Rani asserts she was “unnecessarily targeted” as a result of this inter-se dispute.
On 5 April 2024, the Secretary of the current managing committee issued a suspension order against her. A letter dated 11 June 2024 from the District Education Officer, Khagaria, directed her either to abide by the suspension or to furnish an explanation. Her salary was simultaneously withheld. Both the suspension letter and the District Education Officer's consequential letter were challenged in the writ petition filed before the High Court.
While the writ was pending, matters escalated. On 10 January 2026, the Secretary of the managing committee issued a dismissal order, which was forwarded to the District Education Officer and the District Programme Officer (Establishment). The petitioner challenged this dismissal order by filing Interlocutory Application No. 01 of 2026, specifically contending that it was passed without obtaining the mandatory prior approval of the Director of Secondary Education under Section 18(3)(d) of the 1981 Act, as amended by the 2011 Amendment Act.
The School's Objection: Ordinary Contract of Service
Respondent No. 7, Plus 2 Arya Kanya Uchaya Vidyalaya, raised a threshold objection to the writ's maintainability in its Supplementary Counter Affidavit. The school's case, as argued by its counsel, was straightforward: the school is a minority aided school, not a statutory body; the impugned orders were passed in relation to a dispute arising out of an ordinary contract of service; therefore no writ under Article 226 would lie to challenge them.
To support this position, counsel for the school placed reliance on six decisions, including the Supreme Court's judgment in Shri Vidya Ram Misra v. Managing Committee, Shri Jai Narain College (1972) 1 SCC 623, Pradeep Kumar Biswas v. Indian Institute of Chemical Biology (2002) 5 SCC 111, Trigun Chand Thakur v. State of Bihar (2019) 7 SCC 513, St. Mary's Education Society v. Rajendra Prasad Bhargava (2023) 4 SCC 498, Army Welfare Education Society, New Delhi v. Sunil Kumar Sharma (2024) 16 SCC 598, and Dileep Kumar Pandey v. Union of India 2025 Live Law (SC) 629.
The core of the school's argument drew from St. Mary's Education Society, where the Supreme Court had held that even if an educational institution discharges a public duty, its decision to terminate an ordinary contract of service has no direct nexus to that public duty and therefore attracts no public law element. Without a public law element, the school argued, no writ could issue.
The Statutory Framework: Bihar Non-Government Secondary Schools Act, 1981
The 1981 Act was enacted with the objective of taking over the management and control of non-government secondary schools in Bihar for better organisation and development of secondary education in the State. Schools covered by the Act are required to formulate service rules governing their teaching and non-teaching staff and submit them to the Education Department for approval.
The 2011 Amendment Act conferred regulatory control over the affairs of minority schools on the Director of Secondary Education, Education Department, Government of Bihar. That authority also exercises disciplinary control over the teaching and non-teaching staff of such schools. Section 18(3)(b) governs approval of appointments, while Section 18(3)(d) governs dismissals, making approval of the Director mandatory before a dismissal order takes effect.
The petitioner's case was that the service rules of the school were framed under the 1981 Act, that her appointment itself carried the approval of the competent Service Board, and that all subsequent service benefits flowed from State Government policy applicable to minority aided school staff. Both suspension without government approval and dismissal without Director's approval were, she contended, violations of specific statutory provisions—not merely breaches of a contractual term.
How the Court Reasoned Through the Precedents
Justice Sinha examined each precedent relied upon by the school and distinguished all of them on the precise ground the school had raised.
On Shri Vidya Ram Misra, the court found that in that case the cause of action arose solely from a breach of Clause 5 of the individual contract of service between the petitioner and his college. The statutes governing that situation—Statutes 151, 152 and 153 framed under the Lucknow University Act, 1920—did not prescribe any particular procedure for dismissal to be incorporated in the contract. The terms of service mentioned in Statute 151 had, as the Supreme Court had put it, proprio vigore no force of law; they derived legal character only when incorporated in the contract. No statutory provision was therefore breached. The writ was rightly not maintainable in those facts. The present case, the court held, was factually different because the challenge here rested on alleged breach of the 1981 Act's approval requirement, not on the breach of a contractual clause standing alone.
Pradeep Kumar Biswas was distinguished on the ground that it was an authority on when a body qualifies as “State” within Article 12—a question not raised by the school here at all. The school's objection was not that it fell outside Article 12; it was that a writ could not be maintained for a dispute arising from an ordinary contract. That being so, the Article 12 test in Pradeep Kumar Biswas was simply inapplicable.
Trigun Chand Thakur similarly turned on the question whether a managing committee was a “State” within Article 12 and not on the contract-of-service versus statutory-breach distinction. The court reached the same conclusion: misplaced reliance by the school.
The most careful analysis was reserved for St. Mary's Education Society. The court observed that the school itself had relied on that judgment, but that on a proper reading the judgment actually aided the petitioner. Paragraph 75.4 of St. Mary's Education Society had specifically carved out an exception: where the removal of a non-teaching or teaching staff member is “regulated by some statutory provisions, its violation by the employer in contravention of law may be interfered with by the Court”—and such interference would be “on the ground of breach of law and not on the basis of interference in discharge of public duty.”
The court also referred to paragraphs 62 and 64 of St. Mary's Education Society, where the Supreme Court had distinguished Marwari Balika Vidyalaya v. Asha Srivastava (2020) 14 SCC 449 on the ground that in Marwari Balika Vidyalaya the removal of the teacher required State Government approval—making that a case of statutory breach and not merely private contract breach. The very feature that distinguished Marwari Balika Vidyalaya was present in the instant case: approval of the Director of Secondary Education was, the petitioner contended, mandated by the 1981 Act before any dismissal could take effect.
On Army Welfare Education Society and Dileep Kumar Pandey, Justice Sinha found that neither judgment diluted the settled proposition that a writ lies where interference is sought on the ground of breach of law. Both decisions had held writs non-maintainable in circumstances where the service conditions of the employees were not regulated by any statutory provisions. In the present case, statutory regulation through the 1981 Act was specifically pleaded and not specifically denied by the school in its counter affidavit.
The court also drew support from a co-ordinate bench decision of the Patna High Court in Shiv Shankar Singh v. State of Bihar (CWJC No. 5476 of 2020, decided 8 May 2025), which, on similar facts involving the 1981 Act's approval requirement, had set aside a termination order passed without the Director's approval.
The Decisive Legal Holding
Justice Sinha framed the core question as: whether a writ petition is maintainable at the behest of a dismissed employee against a school discharging a public function, if the action complained of is assailed on the ground of breach of a statutory provision governing the employee's service conditions.
The answer was yes. The court held that since both the suspension order and the dismissal order had been challenged, among other grounds, on the specific ground of breach of statutory provisions contained in the 1981 Act as amended by the 2011 Amendment Act—namely, the absence of mandatory approval of the Director of Secondary Education—the writ petition was maintainable against Plus 2 Arya Kanya Uchaya Vidyalaya, which undisputedly discharges a public function by imparting education.
The court was careful to note one limitation. In the Supplementary Counter Affidavit, the school had stated that the suspension order was approved by the District Education Officer vide letter dated 11 June 2024, but had produced no document evidencing that approval. More significantly, no denial was made to the petitioner's categorical assertion that the dismissal order of 10 January 2026 was passed without seeking the Director's approval. That failure to specifically controvert the statutory breach allegation weighed in favour of maintainability.
The court also drew a clear line between what would be permissible at the merits stage and what would not. The petitioner would be permitted to argue the case on merit strictly on the ground of alleged breach of the statutory provisions of the 1981 Act as amended. If she could not establish that breach at the merits stage, the court indicated it might not finally entertain the writ application. The maintainability ruling at this stage, Justice Sinha made clear, was provisional in that sense.
Order
Justice Alok Kumar Sinha rejected the maintainability objection raised by Plus 2 Arya Kanya Uchaya Vidyalaya in paragraph 15 of its Supplementary Counter Affidavit. The writ petition was held maintainable for the present, with the petitioner confined to arguing the merits strictly on the ground of alleged breach of the statutory provisions of the 1981 Act as amended by the 2011 Amendment Act, and on no other ground.
The matter was directed to be listed after two weeks on 20 July 2026 under “Order on Petition” for disposal of I.A. No. 01 of 2026 — the interlocutory application challenging the dismissal order dated 10 January 2026. The respondent parties were directed to file their replies to the interlocutory application in the meantime.