Last nails on the coffin of 10,323 teachers being tightened, even the crucial Para-127 of the original high court judgment dismissed as inapplicable

By Our Correspondent

Agartala, March 5, 2026

Even as the funeral processions of the retrenched 10,323 teachers continue to grow longer, the last nails on the coffins of the till now surviving teachers are now being hit and tightened . Altogether three post-graduate retrenched teachers and petitioners had lost a writ based on plea for reinstatement in a single bench of high court of Tripura earlier and had rightfully appealed to the division bench . As anticipated well in advance the division bench dismissed the writ appeal on February 23 with a partial relief in the form of exemption from payment of a ‘cost’ of Rs 50 thousand each imposed on the three petitioners.

But legal circles here expressed reservations over an observation made by the division bench that invocation of Para-127 of the original judgment passed by then chief justice Deepak Kumar Gupta and justice Swapan Chandra Das on May 7 2014 did not give any safeguard to the vast majority of the 10,323 teachers from termination . It was termed ‘wrong’ said the division bench’s observation in the judgment passed on February 23. Speaking on the issue sources in legal circles said that the original high court judgment of May 7 2014 had emphatically stated in Para-127 that the order would have prospective effect and in the instant case only teachers whose jobs had been challenged on the ground of recruitment rules would be retrenched. There was no ambiguity in the order and it was an assertive direction that had been finally upheld by the supreme court order on the case passed on March 29 2017 by the apex court’s division bench comprising the then justices Adarsh Kumar Goel and Udai Umesh Lalit with the assertion that they would not interfere with the high court order. There was only an observation that recruitment of teachers should be done in scrupulous compliance with the provisions of the new education policy of Centre. “It is clear that the original high court judgment was upheld in entirety by the supreme court’s division bench , hence it is difficult to make out how invoking Para-127 as safeguard for protecting most of the jobs is wrong” said a senior lawyer. He stated that the teachers whose jobs had been challenged on ground of recruitment rules and who were to be retrenched as per the original high court order did not number more than 209.

But be that as it may , earlier petitions by teachers belonging to all three categories-undergraduate, graduate and post-graduate-had been dismissed on three occasions in 2019,2022 and on October 31 2025 with costs even though the cases had been filed with ‘liberty’ from the supreme court. On the last occasion-that is on October 31 2025- the single bench order dismissing the petitions did not even mention crucial grounds cited on Articles 309 and 311 (II) by the advocates for petitioners in the course of argument with reference to constitutional assembly debates. The case laws favourable to the petitioners and cited by the advocates also did not find any mention in the order that imposed cost on the petitioners. Apart from this, any comment or observation on the celebrated Keshavananda Bharati case on basic structure of the constitution and rule of law and constitution , cited by the advocates , was also missing from the final order of the single bench, said an advocate.

“May be it is a case of ignorance or lack of understanding of law on our part; but it is obvious that there is wide divergence in perception and interpretation of orders and law; we have to accept this as fait accompli in the Indian constitutional democracy and we do so ; we have given only an honest opinion and made fair comment” said a lawyer of the petitioner.

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