Government colleges in Bihar being treated differently?

PATNA: Even as there are only two government colleges in Bihar, imparting higher education to the needy at par with other constituent and affiliated colleges under different universities, they are being treated differently by the state government.

According to some aggrieved teachers, the government prefers to deprive the teachers of these two colleges of the benefits enjoyed by their counterparts in other institutions on one pretext or the other. Even the recent judgement of the Patna high court (HC) given in favour of government college teachers is not being implemented by the authorities, they say.

Teachers of all the colleges and universities in the state are made to retire at the age of 65 years, following the implementation of the revised UGC pay package in 2010. But teachers of the Government Women’s College in Gardanibagh and Gulzarbagh (both affiliated to Pataliputra University) are still retiring at the age of 60 years. Though they are getting UGC pay scales, they are made to retire five years before the teachers of all other colleges under the same university.

Disposing of a writ petition filed by Government Women’s College-Gardanibagh teacher Anita Jamuar in October, Justice Anil Kumar Upadhyaya of Patna HC had directed the state government to take appropriate action authoritatively with regard to enhancement of the age of retirement of the petitioner to 65 years within a maximum period of four months from the date of production of the court order.

Last month in a similar case covered by the judgement of Justice Upadhyaya, another single bench of the HC presided over by Justice Madhuresh Prasad allowed the writ petition of another teacher of the same college, Deepa Bariar, who had sought enhancement of her age of retirement to 65 years, by holding that the decision given in the case of Anita Jamuar “takes care of the grievance raised by the petitioner in the instant case”. However, in what appears to be a case of justice delayed is justice denied, both the petitioners have retired from service even before justice could be meted to them.

This judgement clears the stand to be taken on line of the University Grants Commission communiqué to all the state governments of the country for enhancement of retirement age of university teachers to 65 years in order to meet the acute scarcity of suitable teachers, effective from June 30, 2010. The state education department had issued a notification in this regard to all the universities and on the basis of this, the retirement age of university teachers of the colleges affiliated to and constituent of the universities was enhanced to 65 years.

In her writ petition, Anita Jamuar had claimed enhancement of retirement age of teachers of Government Women’s Colleges to 65 years in terms of the provisions contained under Section 67(d) of the Bihar State Universities Act, 1976 as amended up to date, and also in furtherance of the state government’s letter dated 07.12.2011 making 30.06.2010 as cut off date to enable 65 years as the retirement age of the university teachers. The petitioner submitted that the teachers of the Government Women’s College (Gardanbagh and Gulzarbagh) were university teachers having the service conditions and pay structure and revision of pay structures as set by the University Grants Commission for the university teachers of the colleges affiliated to the universities.