HC orders government to set up educational tribunal to address issues of private institution employees

NAINITAL/DEHRADUN: The Uttarakhand high court on Thursday has ordered the state government to form an ‘educational tribunal’ for addressing issues related to employees of private educational institutions in the state. The HC also set a deadline of six months for the government to set up the tribunal.
Dehradun resident Puran Prasad, who filed the petition, said, “There are various issues like provident funds, matters pertaining to discipline and violation of guidelines which bother teaching and non-teaching staff employed in private educational institutions.Once the tribunal is set up, the employees will at least have a place to register their grievances.”
The petition was heard by a single bench of justice Rajeev Sharma. At present, there are around 60,000 employees employed in over 5,000 private schools, 18 private universities and over 100 private colleges in Uttarakhand.
Reacting to the order, Dinesh Bartwal, vice-principal of Doon International School said, “The educational tribunal should be introduced as soon as possible as it will be in the larger interest of the teaching fraternity across the state. It is certainly a welcome initiative, if set up in a transparent and impartial manner.”
The petition said that retired judges and active lawyers should be a part of the tribunal instead of people from administrative branches of the government. The move will help in keeping an eye on educational institutions and also help resolve staff woes. Earlier, the petition was dismissed by the lower court which said that it cannot regulate matters pertaining to private service contracts.
Many private institutions claimed that they have adequate channel to address the issues of their staff. Deepak Uniyal, PRO, IMS Unison University said, “According to UGC guidelines there is already a grievance cell in our university for employees to register their complaints. But many educational institutions do not have a similar facility for handling such complaints separately. If the state government is thinking of setting an educational tribunal, I think it is definitely a good step.”
While, a non-teaching staff member at a private college in the city said, “We are forced to protest when our issues go unheard, but then we are told that disciplinary action will be initiated against us. Due to this fear, we are often unable to put across our legitimate demands. The educational tribunal should have been set up earlier but we are quite happy that the high court has taken a step now.”