The Supreme Court will hear the appeal filed by self-financing institutions of Mahatma Gandhi University teachers who were sacked and are seeking their benefits, today, Wednesday, April 20.
In the 32 self-financing institutions that fall under the varsity, the teachers who were working on a contract basis were dismissed from service. This happened as part of shifting professional courses in the institutions to the newly constituted Centre for Professional and Advanced Studies after the formation of medical and technological universities.
The sacked teachers approached the Kerala High Court claiming that they too were eligible for salary and benefits on par with those of permanent teachers. But the single bench of the high court dismissed the petition of the teachers and ruled in favour of the university.
But the teachers approached the division bench and got a favourable order directing the varsity to pay salaries and benefits on a par with the permanent teachers. Before the Supreme Court, a petition filed by the university against this is now pending.
MG University was unable to offer courses related to Medicine and Engineering post the formation of the Kerala University of Health Science and the APJ Abdul Kalam Technological University. It was the claim of the university that only those temporary teachers whose appointment was made on a white paper were dismissed from service. The authorities of the university went on to claim that it was a financial burden to pay these teachers salaries and benefits equivalent to that of regular teachers because self-financing courses were running into losses.
