Great injustice to contractual teachers in J&K
By Justice Katju, former Judge, Supreme Court of India
Today, the most educated youth in Jammu and Kashmir are the Ph.D. holders, who have been working as teachers on contract basis in government colleges for many years and are facing a lot of injustice.
These highly qualified, but contractual, teachers are suffering in two ways :
(1) They are paid only Rs 28,000 pm salary, though they have been working for many years, whereas the UGC criteria for those working on contract or ad hoc arrangements is a monthly salary of 57,700.
(2) The experience of those who do not receive the salary as per the UGC criteria in any university or college in India is neither counted nor considered for further employment.
The J&K government is not following the UGC criteria of paying salary to contractual teachers, while it is being followed across the rest of India. Moreover, just a few days ago, the Government of Ladakh also followed the UGC criteria and implemented a salary hike, setting the basic salary at 57,700 for contractual teachers in colleges.
Thus, the J&K government is flagrantly violating Art 14 of the Indian Constitution which requires “Equal Pay for Equal Work”
Since the media and journalists are not raising the issues and justified demands of the contractual teachers, so I am doing it.
