the guarantee of equality is not available against an unaided private minority school.
Supreme Court of India
Satimbla Sharma & Ors vs St.Paul Sr.Secondary School & Ors on 11 August, 2011
Author: A K Patnaik
Bench: R.V. Raveendran, A.K. Patnai
CIVIL APPEAL NO. 2676 OF 2010
10. In Frank Anthony Public School Employees' Association v. Union of India & Ors. (supra), relied
on by learned counsel for the appellants, the scales of pay and other terms and conditions of service
of teachers and other employees of the Frank Anthony Public School, New Delhi, which was a
private unaided minority institution, compared very unfavourably with those of their counterparts
of the Delhi Administration Schools and the Frank Anthony Public School Employees' Association
sought equalization of their pay-scales and conditions of service with those of teachers and
employees of Government schools.
Satimbla Sharma & Ors vs St.Paul Sr.Secondary School & Ors on 11 August, 2011
Indian Kanoon - http://indiankanoon.org/doc/1510648/ 4
Sections 8 to 11 of the Delhi School Education Act dealt with the terms and conditions of service of
employees of recognized private schools. Section 10 of the Delhi School Education Act provided that
the scales of pay and allowances, medical facilities, pension, gratuity, provident fund and other
prescribed benefits of the employees of the recognized private schools shall not be less than those of
the corresponding status in schools run by the appropriate authority. Section 12 of the Delhi School
Education Act, however, provided that the provisions of Sections 8 to 11 including Section 10 were
not applicable to unaided minority institutions. The case of teachers of Frank Anthony Public School
was that if Sections 8 to 11 were made applicable to them, they would at least be as well off as
teachers and other employees of Government schools. The Frank Anthony Public School Employees'
Association therefore challenged Section 12 of the Delhi School Education Act as discriminatory and
violative of Article 14 of the Constitution and this Court held that Section 12 of the Delhi School
Education Act insofar as it makes the provisions of Sections 8 to 11 inapplicable to unaided minority
schools is discriminatory. This was thus a case in which the employees of unaided minority
institutions were not given the benefits available to employees of other private institutions under
Sections 8, 9, 10 and 11 of the Delhi School Education Act only on the ground that unaided minority
institutions enjoy autonomy of administration under Article 30(1) of the Constitution and this Court
held that this could not be a rational basis for differentiation of service conditions, pay and other
service benefits between employees of unaided minority institutions and the employees of other
private schools and the Court declared Section 12 as discriminatory. In other words, the State by
making a statutory provision in Section 12 of the Delhi School Education Act which was
discriminatory, had violated the mandate to the State under Article 14 of the Constitution not to
deny the equal protection of the laws within its territories. This decision in the case of Frank
Anthony Public School Employees' Association v.
Union of India & Ors. (supra) does not assist the appellants in any manner because the guarantee of
equality, as we have said, is not available against an unaided private minority school.