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Judgment
Heard.
Rule. Rule made returnable forthwith. Heard finally with the consent of learned Counsel for the parties.
The present petition challenges order below Exhibit 1 in M.C.A. No. 1/2025, passed on 05.08.2025 by the Presiding Officer, School Tribunal, Amravati. Vide said order, the School Tribunal, Amravati, has condoned the delay of 356 days in filing an appeal by the present respondent No. 1, which is being filed under Section 9 of the Maharashtra Employees of Private Schools (Conditions of Service) Regulation Act, 1977 (for short ‘the M.E.P.S. Act’).
I have heard Shri Vaishnav, learned Counsel for the petitioner. He vehemently submits that no material in the nature of an appointment order or otherwise was placed on record to substantiate the plea that the petitioner was in fact an employee within the meaning of Section 2(7) of the M.E.P.S. Act, so as to entitle him to file an appeal under Section 9. Furthermore, he points out Section 9(2) of the said Act to submit that it is only an employee who is entitled to file an appeal before the School Tribunal. He also submits in alternative that there is nothing in the Act which shows that a delay application has to be decided separately and not with the appeal filed. He, therefore, submits that the order being unsustainable in nature is liable to be quashed and set aside.
Per contra, Mrs. Bajaj, learned Counsel points me out the list of documents which are filed along with the appeal and submits that the entire contentions raised by the petitioner are a matter of trial and evidence.
Be that as it may, I have gone through the impugned order. As far as the first contention raised by the learned Counsel for the petitioner that it is imperative that for filing an appeal before the School Tribunal, it is obligatory on the applicant to show that he is an employee as contemplated under Section 2(7) of the Act. There cannot be any dispute about this proposition. However, the Act nowhere obligates that only an appointment order ipso facto can be a pointer to the fact that the applicant was in fact appointed in the respondent school.
Furthermore, as far as the contention of the learned Counsel for the petitioner that there is nothing in the Act to show that a delay application has to be decided first and then the matter is to be proceeded on merits, in my considered opinion, the contention is misconceived. Since it is a matter of procedure as has been settled by a plethora of judgments of this Court and the Hon'ble Apex Court that delay application is to be decided first, and then the matter has to be touched on its own merits.
On merits, even otherwise, the Tribunal has considered the entire contentions raised by the concerned employee, i.e. the respondent. It is a settled principle of law that while condoning or considering an application for delay, the approach of the Courts or Tribunals has to be pragmatic and liberal, and therefore, even though there is no explanation for day to day delay, the overall circumstances are to be looked into. If the application for seeking condonation of delay is tested on the touchstone of this settled law, I am of the considered opinion that a person who (according to him) has put in 8 years of service would not approach the School Tribunal by a spur of moment. It is therefore apparent that all these facts would require necessary and elaborate evidence in the form of documentary or oral, as otherwise desired by the parties.
In that view of the matter, I do not find any perversity in the impugned order. Needless to mention that I have not commented upon the merits of the matter, which would be a matter to be decided by the School Tribunal after appreciating the entire material on record. All the rival contentions, including the status of the petitioner being an employee of the respondent school, is kept open. The petition is therefore misconceived and is liable to be rejected. Hence, it is rejected.