Private School Can't Be Treated As Closed Without Prior Approval Of DoE, Staff Entitled To Salary: Delhi High Court

The Delhi High Court has held that a recognised private school cannot be treated as “closed in law” merely because it stopped functioning without obtaining prior approval from the Directorate of Education (DoE), and that such unilateral cessation does not extinguish employees' salary and service rights.Justice Sanjeev Narula was dealing with a batch of pleas concerning a private unaided school here- Dayanand Adarsh Vidyalaya. The pleas were filed by teaching and non-teaching staff over unpaid salaries, arrears under the 7th Central Pay Commission and retiral dues. The school had stopped functioning from 01 April 2020, citing financial distress and declining student strength.While the management argued that the institution had effectively ceased to exist, the petitioners contended that there was no lawful closure since mandatory approval from the DoE was never obtained. Granting relief to the petitioners, the Court noted that the school could not, by locking its premises or discontinuing classes, step outside the statutory regime that governs recognised schools, nor could the service rights of employees be extinguished by administrative fait accompli.Referring to Delhi School Education Act, it said that law does not proceed on the footing that once a school becomes financially weak, the management may simply stop operating it and then invite the Court to accept the stoppage as closure. Financial weakness is itself one of the matters regulated by the statute, it added. The judge said that no managing committee can close a recognised school, or even an existing class in such school, without full justification and without prior approval of the Director, who must consult the Advisory Board before granting that approval.“A lock on the gate may show that the management has stopped discharging its obligations. It does not prove that those obligations have come to an end. The law draws a distinction between “the school has been shut by the management” and “the school stands closed in law”. The first may be a fact. The second requires statutory approval. Until that approval is granted, the management cannot be heard to say that the institution had already ceased to exist for legal purposes,” the Court said. It added that the Act does not treat salary obligations and financial viability as matters that “disappear upon managerial choice”. It also refused to accept the proposition that the school stood closed in law from April 01, 2020 merely because the management stopped running it from that date. “The management cannot derive an advantage from its own decision to stop the school first and seek legal recognition of that position later. So long as approval under Rule 46 was absent, the school remained within the statutory fold, and the rights of its employees could not be treated as having been washed away by the management's act of closure in fact,” the Court said. Further, the Court observed that the Act does not treat payment of salary as a matter left to managerial convenience and that the statute protects employees against unilateral termination by insisting upon prior approval of the Director, and it secures parity in pay and service benefits with employees of corresponding status in schools run by the appropriate authority. Justice Narula declared that the school was not lawfully closed from April 01, 2020, adding that any stoppage of activity from that date was only unilateral cessation of functioning without approval of DoE and cannot defeat the salary, emolument, service, and retiral claims of the Petitioners.It further directed the Director of Education to nominate a responsible officer, preferably not below the rank of Deputy Director/Accounts Officer, to carry out a Petitioner-wise computation of dues in all the writ petitions. It ordered the Director of Education to also take a final and reasoned decision on the school's application for closure within ten weeks, after hearing the school, representatives of the staff, and the concerned managing bodies.Title: VISHWAJYOTI v. VIRENDER KUMAR SARDANA & other connected mattersCitation: 2026 LiveLaw (Del) 324Click here to read order

Private School Can't Be Treated As Closed Without Prior Approval Of DoE, Staff Entitled To Salary: Delhi High Court

Nupur Thapliyal

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