Joneswari M E School vs State Of Assam And 5 Ors

Heard Mr. M Khan, learned counsel for the petitioner. Also heard Mr. A Phukan, learned counsel for the respondents no. 1, 2, 3 and 6 being the

authorities under the Elementary Education Department, Government of Assam, Mr. B Choudhury, learned counsel for the respondent no. 4 being the

authorities under the SSA, Assam and Ms. D D Barman, learned Additional Senior Government Advocate for the respondent no. 5 being the Deputy

Commissioner, Kamrup(M).

The petitioner Joneswari ME School was subjected to the process for provincialisation under the Assam Education (Provincialisation of Services of

Teachers and Re-Organisation of Educational Institutions) Act, 2017 (in short, the Act of 2017) and the District Scrutiny Committee, Kamrup(M) had

recommended for its provincialisation. In the recommendation of the District Scrutiny Committee, the DISE Code of the school was recorded as

11017113. Inpsite of such recommendation, the provincialisation was rejected as per the order of the Deputy Director, Elementary Education, Assam,

which is available as Annexure-12, page-37 to the writ petition. The reason recorded in the order of Deputy Director for not provincialising the

services of the teachers of the petitioner school is as extracted as below:

“(a) DISE related (“DISE Code†means District Information System for Education Code prepared by the SSA, Assam and as

available in the record of National University of Education Planning & Administration, (NUEPA), New Delhi). As per the decision of the

Joint Committee constituted by the Govt. vide Notification No. PMA.162/2019/600-A dated 18/03/2019 vide Minutes dated 24/07/2020. The

M.D., SSA, Assam was requested to verify the DISE data. Accordingly, the SSA, Assam provided the DISE data to this Directorate.

(i) Not having NUEPA DISE Code of the school for the year 2009-10 or prior to that as per clause 3 (3) of the Act 2017.â€​

A reading of the reason provided by the Deputy Director makes it discernable that the provincialisation was refused inasmuch as NUEPA DISE

Code of the school for the year 2009-2010 or prior was not available. The School reports Card of 2009-2010 which are available in the website of

SSA shows the school Code to be 18061101713. The search result in respect of Joneswari ME School also shows the school code to 18061101713.

Having taken note of the school code appearing in the website of the SSA, we have noticed that the DISE Code that was recorded by the District

Scrutiny Committee while recommending the petitioner school was erroneous to the extent that the District Scrutiny Committee had recorded it to be

11017113 whereas as per the school code available in the website of the SAA it ought to have been 1101713. In other words, inadvertently there was

one ‘1’ recorded in excess by the District Scrutiny Committee. It being so, we have to consider the reason for rejecting the provincialisation of

the petitioner school in the background of the aforesaid inadvertent mistake on the part of the District Scrutiny Committee.

Accordingly, we required the view of the SSA authorities on the aforesaid issue. The SSA authorities have produced a para-wise comment on the

issue which is extracted as below:

“3. The school â€" ‘Joneswari MES’ bearing DISE code 18061101713 was found in DISE database from 2006-07 to 2010-11

against undivided Kamrup District which was found against Kamrup(Metro) from 2011-12 onwards to2013-14 as DISE code 18271101713.

The change of four digit district code 1806 of Kamrup to 1827 of Kamrup (Metro) may kindly be seen by comparing the two DISE code

18061101713 and 18271101713. The school code 18271101713 is again changed to 18271100633 due to re-organization of Wards in

2014-15 and continuing till 2020-21. The year wise report found in the DISE database since 2006-07 to 2020-2021 is enclosed at

‘Annexure-I’.â€​

Further the year wise status of the Joneswari ME School as per the DISE database is also provided which shows the UDISE Code of the school to

be 18061101713 to be constantly being applicable from the year 2006-2007 upto 2010-2011.

From the year 2011-2012, there was a bifurcation of the Kamrup district in two districts namely Kamrup(R) and Kamrup(M) and the petitioner

school having been located under the Kamrup(M) area the UDISE code had been changed and the UDISE code of the school after the bifurcation

into the Kamrup(M) was 18271101713. The difference is that earlier there was a prefix of 180 prior to the bifurcation and after the bifurcation the

prefix is 182.

We have also noticed that from the year 2014-2015 the UDISE Code was again renumbered for the Joneswari ME School to be 18271100633

which continued upto the year 2020-2021. As the Joneswari ME School is constantly having a DISE code under the SSA with certain changes after

the bifurcation of the Kamrup district into Kamrup(M) and Kamrup(R), we have to understand and accept that the Joneswari ME School constantly

had the DISE Code under the SSA, although the number may have changed because of the aforesaid circumstances and it cannot be an accepted

situation that the school did not have the DISE Code.

In view of such conclusion, the reasoning given by the Deputy Director, Elementary Education, Assam for not provincialising the Joneswari ME

School that the school did not have the NUEPA DISE Code for the year 2009-2010 or prior would be unacceptable. Accordingly, the said reasoning in

the order of the Deputy Director stands set aside. The matter is remanded back to the Deputy Director to pass a fresh order on the claim for

provincialisation of the Joneswari ME School under the Act of 2017 by taking note of the conclusions arrived hereinabove as regards the DISE Code

of the school.

The reasoned order be passed within a period of two months from the date of the certified copy of this order.

A copy of the information provided by the SSA as noted above is kept on record.

Writ petition stands allowed in the above terms.