MUMBAI: Cracking down on irregularities in teacher recruitment across Maharashtra, the Bombay High Court on Wednesday directed the state government to constitute high-level committees in every division to investigate private educational institutions that have allegedly bypassed the state’s official Pavitra Portal while hiring teachers.
The directive comes amid growing evidence of a “systemic and widespread” pattern of schools recruiting teachers privately under the false claim that the Pavitra Portal was non-functional, a practice the court said has “serious ramifications for public accountability”, since salaries of such teachers are paid from public funds.
Widening scam
Earlier this year, the state government announced the formation of a Special Investigation Team (SIT) comprising senior IAS and IPS officers to probe a large-scale recruitment scam that first came to light in Nagpur. Investigations revealed that 580 fake teachers and non-teaching staff had been appointed in 12 government-aided schools using forged signatures and documents. Several senior education officials were also suspected of involvement.
State school education minister Dada Bhuse had acknowledged that the issue is not confined to Nagpur, he said that complaints of irregular appointments have been surfacing from multiple districts.
The court’s order
The division bench of justices Ravindra V Ghuge and Ashwin D Bhobe issued the order on October 19 while hearing three petitions filed by Sudhagad Education Society from Raigad district and its teachers. Their proposals for regularisation as Shikshan Sevaks had been rejected by the district education officer on the grounds that their appointments were made directly, without using the Pavitra Portal.
The petitioner institution argued that the government’s online recruitment system was not operational at the time of recruitment and that it had not been given login credentials. However, the education department produced records proving that the Pavitra Portal was functional and that the Society had been allotted a login ID well before the appointments were made.
The bench observed that the Society had first denied, and later changed, its stance on the issue. It concluded that the institution had made “a false statement on oath” and attempted to mislead both the court and the government. The judges also noted that the Society had not recruited “even a single teacher” through the Pavitra Portal in the past eight years, despite the system being mandatory.
Given the apparent scale of the malpractice, the court directed the principal secretary of the School Education and Sports Department to immediately form three-member regional committees in each division to review teacher appointments.
Each committee will be headed by the deputy director of education of the respective region and include senior education officers. They have been tasked with inspecting aided schools and colleges, identifying institutions that violated recruitment norms, and submitting reports to the principal secretary for further action.
Ensuring transparency
The bench also instructed the government to draft a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) within six months to ensure uniform compliance across the state. The SOP must cover: verification that all aided schools have active Pavitra Portal login IDs; a seven-day response timeline for education officers to act on management communications; uploading names of surplus teachers on district websites; and ensuring that recruitment advertisements are published only in widely circulated newspapers with proper reservation details.
Launched on June 23, 2017, the Pavitra Portal was designed by the School Education and Sports Department to make teacher recruitment in private aided schools transparent and merit-based. A Government Resolution issued in February 2019 further streamlined the process, making it mandatory for all aided institutions to use the portal for appointments.
Emphasising that recruitment in aided schools amounts to public employment, the court warned that “backdoor entries” and manipulation of the system would not be tolerated. “Appointments must be made through a transparent and merit-based system,” the bench said, cautioning that any deviation would invite strict action from the newly constituted committees.