Patna, Aug. 23: Cut-up with the human resource development (HRD) department’s decision to scale down the salary of 132 senior teachers of Patna University, a delegation comprising 40 of them this evening met vice-chancellor (VC) S.N. Singh and apprised him of the case details.
The varsity received a letter from the HRD department on Saturday stating that the 132 teachers would not be paid according to the Sixth Pay Commission scale. It stated that they would get salary according to the old scale, as the cases related to their appointment were pending in court.
Registrar and dean (students welfare) P.K. Poddar, who led the delegation to the VC, said: “We told the VC that Patna High Court had issued a stay on the issue of absorption of the 132 teachers. So, the move of the HRD department to reduce their salary is against the court directive and amounts to ‘contempt of court’.”
The 132 teachers in question were absorbed between 1976 and 1978. In 1982, then chief minister Jagan- nath Mishra regularised their services.
The registrar said the delegation talked to the VC in a cordial atmosphere. Prima facie it appears that the varsity would not go against the court directive, he added.
If the HRD department reverts the 132 senior teachers to the earlier scale, their salary would be less than that of the assistant and associate professors. Several heads of departments and principals would be affected by the decision.
Umesh Mishra, the principal of Vanijya Mahavidhyalya, told The Telegraph: “The salary cut of the senior teachers after serving the university for more than 20 years is injustice.”
Terming the move unexpected, Mishra claimed that the HRD departm- ent’s directive was contempt of court.