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The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) has directed the Secretaries of Ministry of Human Resource Development, Department of Higher Education, Ministry of Labour and Employment, Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, and Principal Secretary, Directorate of Education, Government of NCT of Delhi to submit Action Taken Reports (ATRs) on rights denial to the teachers of private and public schools in India in general and Delhi in particular within six weeks.
Acting on a petition filed by Supreme Court lawyer and noted rights activist, Radhakanta Tripathy, the NHRC passed the order. The NHRC in its order observed "the Complainant, a well-known human rights defender, by way of instant complaint has raised a serious issue concerning violation of human rights of school teachers who are working in public/private schools. It is stated that regular school teachers, working either as a primary teacher or TGT/PGT in public schools, for instance in Delhi, are rendering normally between 30-35 years of continuous service and are being governed by Delhi Education Act and Rules wherein they are getting regular pay scale and allowances as per 7th Pay Commission." Tripathy alleged that on their superannuation or voluntary retirement they are being discriminated and not being paid pension at par with teachers who retire from Delhi Government/Municipal Corporation schools or from that of Kendriya Vidhalayas which amounts to discrimination, violation of their right to life, dignity, equality and liberty. In order to substantiate his contention, Tripathy has stated that after the 7th Pay Commission, the minimum pension for Group D government employees is Rs 18,000 with educational qualification as matric whereas the TGT or PGT teachers who are invariably graduates or postgraduates are getting pensions under the provisions of the Employees Provident Funds Act which is at par with that of pension given to a widow as social welfare measure ignoring their educational qualification. Tripathy further stated that the Government of India has notified, on 29th September last year, a Code on Social Security-2020, wherein its definition clause (Section 2) has defined various categories of workers on whom the Code will apply but has excluded a public/private school teacher from its purview thereby depriving them social security including insurance, medical care and pension with regard to other categories of workers. The Petitioner has enumerated names of certain renowned public schools of Delhi wherein such practice is prevailing and asserted that the same is the situation in entire NCR and other States resulting in injustice, discrimination, inequality and denial of equality and dignified right of life and liberty to such public school teachers. Tripathy has urged for the intervention of the Commission for constitution of a committee by a Central government to examine the issues in totality and sympathetically consider reasonable pension for such teachers commensurate to their educational qualification and services rendered to humanity and at par with that of teachers retiring from Government/Municipal schools. (ANI)
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