TET Qualification Is Mandatory For All Educational Institutions Including Minority Institutions: Madras High Court

The bench of Justice J Nisha Banu and Justice S Srimathy held that the Government had powers to prescribe the minimum educational qualification for the appointment of teachers and the government had prescribed the TET qualification under such power. Thus, the court held that the qualification was mandatory.

“Therefore, this Court after perusing the facts, provisions and by relying on the judgments rendered in Pramati's case and T.M.A.Pai Foundation case is of the considered opinion that the Government has power to prescribe minimum educational qualifications for teachers to be appointed in the educational institutions including minority institutions. The government had appointed NCTE as “Academic Authority” to prescribe qualifications. And NCTE has prescribed TET as one of the qualifications. Therefore, TET qualification is applicable to all educational institutions including minority institutions also,” the court said.

The court was hearing an appeal preferred by the State against an order of the writ court wherein it was held that it was not mandatory to possess TET qualification in a minority institution. The writ court had thus directed the State's Education department to pay monetary benefits to one Bashiri (original petitioner) who sought promotion as BT Assistant without qualifying TET.

Bashiri was appointed as a Secondary Grade Teacher in Al Ameen Urdu Tamil Muslim High School which was a private aided minority school governed by the Tamil Nadu Recognized Private Schools (Regulation Act) 1974 and rules made thereunder and the Tamil Nadu Minority School (Recognition and Payments of Grant) Rules, 1977. In 2022, Bashiri was promoted as BT Assistant (Tamil), and in 2023, she attained superannuation. Though the school management submitted a proposal to the District Educational Officer to approve the promotion, it was not done as she did not possess TET qualification. Thus, Bashiri moved the court where the court had directed the department to may monetary benefits. The state challenged the decision.

The State argued that the Supreme Court had not considered whether TET was necessary for a minority institution. The State further argued that Pramathi's case, on which the writ court had relied, had been referred to a larger bench, and since the matter was sub judice, the petitioner could not claim monetary benefits.

The petitioner, on the other hand, argued that there were several decisions which held that TET was not mandatory for minority institution. It was argued that since the Right to Education Act itself was not applicable to minority institution, the TET, which was prescribed under the RTE Act was also not applicable to minority institution.

The court, however, did not accept this argument. The court noted that as per the earlier orders of the Supreme Court, both Article 15(5) and Article 21A read with Sections 12(2)(b), 12(1)(c) read with Sections 2(n)(iii) and 2(n)(iv) of the RTE Act were not applicable to aided and unaided minority institutions. The court thus clarified that other provisions of the RTE Act were upheld even for aided minority schools. The court thus observed that the argument that the RTE Act not being applicable to minority institutions was incorrect.

The court also noted that the previous litigations have never dealt with Section 23 of the RTE Act that prescribes qualification for teachers. The court added that even if it was assumed that TET was not applicable to minority institution, such argument would be against the constitutional bench judgment in TMA Pai Foundation case, which had held that the State or other controlling authorities could prescribe the minimum qualification, salaries, experience and other conditions for teachers. The court remarked that when the decision in TMA Pai foundation still holds good, then the TET qualification prescribed for teachers was applicable to all schools including minority institution.

The court also opined that dispensing with TET qualification in minority institutions would bring in discrimination between teachers in non-minority institution and in minority institution and would be violative of Article 14 of the Constitution.

In the present case, noting that the candidate did not have TET qualification, the court opined that the approval of appointment could not be granted. Thus, holding that the Education Department's order denying approval was valid, the court set aside the order of the writ court and allowed the appeal.

Counsel for Appellant: Mr. J. Ashok Additional Government Pleader

Counsel for Respondents: Mr. J. Lawrance

Case Title: The State of Tamil Nadu and Others v. K Bashiri and Others

Citation: 2025 LiveLaw (Mad) 138

Case No: W.A(MD)No.429 of 2025