Over 11K cases pile up against Edu Dept, CEOs to monitor

CHENNAI: With the number of court cases filed against the School Education Department crossing 11,000 and most judgments going against the State due to inadequate follow-ups and officials adopting a casual approach, the government will now hold respective Chief Education Officers responsible for handling of all cases in their jurisdiction.

As of now, the government spends at least Rs 2 crore as ‘professional fee’ for legal officers and lawyers who represent the government annually, yet there has not been much progress in most cases, said officials. The amount includes lawyers’ fees and fines paid to courts.

In January 2020, the government had constituted a high-level committee comprising authorities and legal experts in the School Education Department to monitor all pending legal issues. “Most cases were not followed up properly and this goes against us,” a senior School Education Department official told DT Next.

Stating that his Department has the most number of cases compared, the official said the committee members recommended that strict measures have to be taken so that cases could be dealt with easily with. “An order has been issued that all the Chief Education Officers (CEO) and all the District Education Officers (DEO) will be fully responsible for cases,” he said, adding, if discrepancies were found, these officials would have to spend the amount the government doled out for the legal work.

Pointing out that more than 60% cases are related to teachers versus the government on pay issues, promotion anomalies, transfers, and recruitment, the official said that the main reason for these cases arise over issues in the teacher’s service register.