Cuttack, March 22: Orissa High Court today reserved judgment on the validity of the gradation list of primary school teachers prepared by the school and mass education department.

The verdict is expected to settle a dispute for which the government has not been able to fill up promotional posts for nearly a year now. While the State Administrative Tribunal (SAT) had quashed the gradation list, the high court had issued an interim stay order on it. Around 11,110 level-IV posts and 7,142 level-III posts were lying vacant in the state while the central government had issued guidelines to fill up all posts in view of the enactment of Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act.

The dispute over the gradation list has centred round the en masse seniority given to non-government primary school teachers who were declared government servants by a resolution passed by the education and youth services department on September 26, 1989 over teachers of aided non-government upper primary schools which were taken over by the resolution of education department on May 12, 1992.

The two-judge bench of Justice B.P. Das and Justice B.K. Mishra closed hearing on the case and reserved judgment after scrutiny of the records received from the SAT and arguments on it.

The gradation list was initially challenged by the All-Orissa Lower Secondary Teachers Association and others in the SAT. The tribunal had, on April 27, 2010, quashed the list and directed the state to fix seniority of teachers as per resolution of the education department on May 12, 1992 on the basis, of which aided non-government upper primary schools were taken over.

“The assistant teachers of non-government primary schools deemed government servants on the basis of the resolution passed on September 26, 1989 cannot be covered under the Orissa Elementary Education (Method of Recruitment and Conditions of Service of teachers and officers), Rules, 1997 as their schools were not specifically declared as government schools at any given point of time,” SAT had ruled.

While petitions challenging the SAT order were filed in the high court, the state government had also filed a petition. In one of the petitions, the high court had, on May 20, 2010, issued an interim stay order, which said: “In the meantime, the order dated 27.4.2010 passed by the State Administrative Tribunal, along with a batch of cases shall not be given effect to without leave of this court.”

The case had assumed controversial overtones in January this year when the high court initiated contempt proceedings against school and mass education department commissioner-cum-secretary, Aparajita Sarangi, after it was alleged that promotions had been given to 400 non-government primary school teachers who were declared government employees without seeking the court’s permission.