Rajasthan High Court calls out State for gender discrimination among teachers

The Rajasthan High Court recently called out the State government for discriminating against female teachers in promotions on the ground that the number of girls' schools are less in comparison to boys' schools [Smt Tara Agrawat v. The State of Rajasthan].

The Court was hearing a 2009 petition challenging the State education department's decision to prepare two different seniority lists for male and female teachers. While male teachers appointed up to 1998 were considered for promotion, only female teachers appointed up to 1996 were included in the list.  

Justice Anoop Kumar Dhand said that by such exercise, the authorities not only caused gender discrimination but also violated the right to equality of the female teachers.

“Hence, the respondents have violated their fundamental rights contained under Article 14, 15(1), 16 and 21 of the Constitution of India. Such act on the part of the respondents is quite arbitrary, unjustified and is liable to be deprecated,” the Court added.

The Court emphasised that discrimination on the basis of sex in India has always been considered  as infringement of the fundamental rights, as provided under Part III of the Constitution of India.

“Article 14 of the Constitution addresses equality between the persons, Article 15(1) forbids the state from discriminating against anyone based on their sex among other things, and also prohibits classification amongst citizens on the basis of sex for any purpose and Article 16(1) and (2) deals with the equal opportunity in matters of public employment. These prohibitions are unqualified and absolute," the Court observed.

The State’s justification that the the requirement of male teachers was greater than female teacher as boys schools are more in number also did not impress the Court.

Rather, the Court criticised the State for assuming that only male teachers are competent enough to teach in boys' schools.

“Though on the face of it the rule makes a classification based on the demand of teachers belonging to a particular gender, the impact of that classification falls on female teachers, and thus, in effect, the rule entrenches social hierarchy by reaffirming existing inequalities between men and women. The above classification unjustly implies that only male teachers are competent enough to teach in boys’ school, thus treating female teachers as a substandard class in comparison to their counterpart," it said.

The Court further noted such classification, though it appeared to be innocuous, granted a greater proportion of promotions to male teachers on the basis of archaic gender stereotypes rather than any evidence of better educational outcomes.

Concluding that there was a clear case of discrimination in the case, the Court said the mandate of the State to not discriminate between citizens on grounds of sex was one of the most important fundamental rules that calls for strict observance.

“Unlike the freedoms in Article 19 of the Constitution there is no scope for restricting the absolute scope of the rights under Article 15(1) and 16(2) of the Constitution. There would be no scope whatever to justify differentiating between the male and female sexes in the matter of appointment and promotion. The right of women should not be denied on fanciful assumptions of what work the woman could do and could not do,” said the Court.

It also observed that at a time when ‘beti padhao, beti bachao’ is the goal, such an action by the authorities could neither be supported in law nor on facts.

Accordingly, the Court directed the authorities to consider all eligible female teachers for promotion.

“The respondents are directed to consider the case not only of the petitioners but also of all the similarly situated female teachers appointed as Teacher Gr.III upto the year 1998 for their promotion to the post of Senior Teacher Gr. II for the vacancies of the year 2008-09 and 2009-10 and grant them all consequential benefits,” the order stated.

Advocate HR Kumawat represented the petitioners. Advocate Namita Parihar represented the State.

[Read Judgment]