Supreme Court dismisses 49 madrasah staff pleas, upholds committee's rejection of appointment claims

A Bench of Justices Dipankar Datta and Augustine George Masih found none of 13 test cases showed valid appointment, dismissing all 49 West Bengal madrasah petitions.

The Supreme Court has dismissed a batch of 49 writ petitions filed under Article 32 by more than 350 teachers and non-teaching staff of madrasahs in West Bengal, holding that none of them could establish a valid appointment. The judgment, delivered on 13 July 2026 by Justices Dipankar Datta and Augustine George Masih in Najma Khatun v. State of West Bengal, closes a dispute running since 2014 over service benefits claimed by staff appointed to recognised aided madrasahs.

The petitioners challenged a court-constituted committee that had rejected every claim placed before it. The Court agreed to treat the petitions as appeals against the committee's findings, but only after asking the petitioners' counsel to screen the 10 most glaring cases of injustice. On examining 13 selected cases, the Court found each appointment illegal, vacated interim salary orders, and directed that vacancies now be filled through the Madrasah Service Commission.

How the dispute travelled to the Court

The controversy began with a challenge to the West Bengal Madrasah Service Commission Act, 2008, which introduced selection of teachers and non-teaching staff through an expert Commission whose recommendation was mandatory. A section of the minority community viewed Sections 8 and 10 to 12 as intruding on rights under Article 30.

A Single Judge of the Calcutta High Court declared those provisions ultra vires on 12 March 2014. A Division Bench upheld that view on 9 December 2015, finding the legislation abrogated the minority community's fundamental right.

On a special leave petition by Sk. Mohd. Rafiq, a coordinate Bench stayed the Division Bench judgment on 14 March 2016. That stay was never vacated. In the interregnum the State issued two notifications — dated 9 February 2015 and 4 March 2016 — laying down recruitment procedures for the exempted and aided madrasahs.

The appeal was finally decided on 6 January 2020 in Sk. Mohd. Rafique v. Managing Committee, Contai Rahamania High Madrasah, where a two-judge Bench led by then Chief Justice U. U. Lalit upheld the MSC Act as constitutional, applying the test in T.M.A. Pai Foundation. That ruling wiped out the declaration of invalidity.

The committee and the wholesale rejection

Closure of the appeal did not end the litigation. Contempt petitions followed, decided in Snehasis Giri v. Subhasis Mitra, where a Bench presided over by then Justice S. Ravindra Bhat constituted a committee headed by Justice Debi Prasad Dey, a retired Calcutta High Court judge, exercising powers under Article 142. The committee was to verify whether appointments met recognition, qualification, vacancy, procedure and other tests.

The committee examined the individual claims of a little under 500 claimants and prepared observations for each. Not a single teacher or non-teaching staff member could substantiate a valid appointment; all claims were rejected. The dissatisfied claimants then filed the present writ petitions.

The petitioners argued that a blanket rejection was not verification but a colourable exercise of power, with non-application of mind and violation of Articles 14, 16 and 21. The respondents countered that the committee's remit was factual, that judicial review of a fact-finding exercise is limited, and that this was a second round of litigation on concluded facts.

The Court acknowledged that absent manifest perversity a review court should stay at a distance, but treated the petitions as appeals on fact as a special case given litigation since 2014. It asked counsel to identify no more than ten teachers and five non-teaching staff who were grossly wronged, requiring affidavit answers on recognition, valid managing committees, qualifications, staff pattern, advertisement and District Inspector approval.

Why the 13 test cases failed

The Court examined 13 petitioners. Each claim collapsed on facts. In Raj Kumar Bag's case, the appointment was made by a court-appointed Ad hoc Managing Committee restricted to “day-to-day administration,” which the Court held did not include recruitment to permanent vacancies. It rejected the argument that Rule 2(d) of the Management Rules equated a court-appointed committee with one appointed by the Madrasah Education Board.

Md. Saidul Islam was found appointed on a post whose sanction had lapsed. Sahana Khatun, Md. Abdur Rahman Gazi and others failed for want of advertisement in State-level dailies and non-compliance with the notifications. The Court declined to invoke Article 142 for Md. Mahamudur Rahman Laskar, observing that protecting an ineligible teacher cannot come at the cost of students.

In Salma Sultana's case, the Court held the madrasah could not rely on an order passed on a different madrasah's petition, and found the appointment subject to the outcome of the pending civil appeal. It disapproved of an advertisement printed among tender notices in an English daily as an attempt to restrict the field of candidates.

For Md. Eliyas, appointed through a walk-in interview not contemplated by either notification, the Court refused regularisation, holding that decisions in Jaggo and Sukhendu Bhattacharjee were confined to their facts and could not override the larger Bench rulings in State of Karnataka v. Umadevi (3) and Official Liquidator v. Dayanand under Article 141.

In Kazi Md. Jahirul Hassan's case, the Court found identical joining letters, the same joining date for all 12 appointees, and delayed service of an approval letter after the MSC Act was upheld. It concluded the documents were ante-dated to lend colour of a prior recruitment, holding the exercise “vitiated by manifest fraud.”

The Article 30 finding on management quota

Md. Mir Mosarraf Hossain was appointed under the 10% management quota in clause 6 of Notification-I, which required no advertisement. The Court held that clause, though unchallenged, was wholly unconstitutional. Appointment to a post funded from the public exchequer could not be made outside safeguards of equality and equal opportunity.

The Court observed the petitioner “stole a march merely because he is a Muslim,” with no competition among eligible community members. It held that minority rights under Article 30(1) cannot include a right to burden the exchequer through a non-competitive, opaque process, adding that aid without accountability is constitutionally unsustainable.

The stay-versus-quashing point

The Court accepted an argument that appointments made after the 14 March 2016 stay, without leave of the Court, were independently illegal. Relying on Shree Chamundi Mopeds Ltd. v. Church of South India Trust Association, it distinguished quashing of an order from stay of its operation. The stay rendered the Division Bench judgment inoperative but did not wipe it out.

The stay, read with a later order of 17 May 2018, created a vacuum in which neither the MSC Act nor the two notifications could operate. Since the notifications drew life from the High Court judgments, they could not survive the stay. The Court held that managing committees should have approached it for guidance rather than proceeding on their own.

Order

The Court rejected the claims of all petitioners and dismissed the entire batch of writ petitions. It held that with the claims rejected, no arrears of salary or allowances were payable, and the State could not be fastened with any liability.

Interim orders restraining removal from service and directing payment of salary were vacated forthwith. The Court directed that the vacant sanctioned posts now be filled as per the recommendations of the Commission. Though it found imposition of costs justified, it took a lenient view and refrained from burdening the petitioners with costs.