The Allahabad High Court has held that a writ petition challenging the termination of a teacher by a private unaided educational institution run by a trust is not maintainable under Article 226 of the Constitution. It held that the dispute being a purely contractual one between employer and employee.

Distinguishing between the amenability of a private body to writ jurisdiction and the maintainability of a particular claim brought against it, Justice Manju Rani Chauhan held,

“The distinction, therefore, is between the amenability of a private body to writ jurisdiction and the maintainability of a particular claim against such body. The former may arise where the private body discharges a public duty; the latter necessarily depends upon the nature of the right asserted and the obligation sought to be enforced. A private institution may, in a given case, be amenable to Article 226, yet a particular dispute arising purely out of a contract of service may nevertheless remain outside the writ jurisdiction.”

Petitioner approached the High Court challenging the termination of service. The respondents raised a preliminary objection to the maintainability of the petition at the outset.

Answering the objection, the petitioner relied on Andi Mukta Sadguru Shri Muktaji Vandas Swami Suvarna Jayanti Mahotsav Smarak Trust v. V.R. Rudani, VST Industries Limited v. VST Industries Workers' Union and the Full Bench decision in Uttam Chand Rawat v. State of U.P. to submit that a writ lies against a private body discharging a public duty or an obligation of a public nature.

Respondents submitted that the institution is a private trust, neither established nor recognised under any statute, which takes no aid or grant from the Government and educates the children of the village free of charge as a voluntary measure. Relying on the twin test laid down by the Full Bench, and on St. Mary's Education Society v. Rajendra Prasad Bhargava, Army Welfare Education Society v. Sunil Kumar Sharma and Dilip Kumar Pandey v. Union of India, they submitted that an employee of a private institution whose service conditions are not governed by statute cannot invoke the extraordinary jurisdiction of the High Court.

The Court accepted that writ jurisdiction is not confined to statutory authorities or instrumentalities of the State, and that mandamus may issue against a private body where the obligation sought to be enforced is of a public character. What was decisive, it held, was not the juridical character of the respondent but the nature of the duty sought to be enforced and the character of the lis brought before it.

The Court observed that though education is of considerable public importance, it does not invest every aspect of the employer-employee relationship within a private educational institution with a public law character, and absent a statutory framework governing conditions of service, the relationship between the management and its teaching staff remains contractual. It held that no statutory right, and no statutory duty of the trust of a public law character, was shown to have been breached.

Holding that the decisions cited by the petitioner did not obliterate the distinction between public law and private law, the Court observed,

“The extraordinary jurisdiction under Article 226 cannot, therefore, be employed as a substitute for an ordinary remedy for adjudication of a private service dispute.”

Accordingly, the writ petition was dismissed on the ground of maintainability alone.