CHENNAI : The Madras High Court has upheld the validity of a government order, which sought to reduce the maintenance grant to schools from the existing four per cent to two per cent.

A Division Bench of Justice P. Sathasivam and Justice S. Tamilvanan dismissing writ appeals and petitions from associations of schools and pointing to the manifold increase in salary of teachers, said the present maintenance grant at two per cent was higher than the amount payable at four per cent with reference to the earlier pay structure.

The maintenance grant, linked to the pay scales of teachers, was reduced to four per cent from six per cent in March 1979. By the impugned order in June 2000, the Government reduced it to two per cent.

Writ petitions were filed challenging the GO. In December 2000, a single judge had dismissed the petition.

Rejecting the appeals on Monday, the judges said: "As rightly pointed out, if the pay of the teachers remained without any revision from 1978, it may be accepted that the reduction in the rate of maintenance grant is an injustice meted out to the managements. As said earlier, from 1978, the pay of teachers has been revised on three occasions — in 1984, 1988 and 1996 — by 10 folds, resulting in an increase of maintenance grant by nearly four times."

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail