Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal is in damage control mode after his speech in Delhi Assembly went viral where he deemed ‘The Kashmir Files’ a movie based on ‘lies’. The Hindu community has criticized him for his insensitivity and called him out for denying Kashmiri Pandits’ genocide that led to their exodus from Kashmir valley.
In order to tone down the negative impact of the claims he had made, Kejriwal went on a damage control mode and claimed his Government gave permanent jobs to 233 Kashmiri Pandits who had been working on contracts in Delhi for decades. However, the teachers’ association of Kashmiri Pandits has denied his claims and released a detailed press note with the timeline of court cases explaining how his Government categorically tried not to give them jobs.
Kejriwal’s govt challenged the court order that has asked them to regularise jobs for Kashmiri Pandit teachers
In the press release, Government School Teachers Association (Migrant) Regd said that they strongly condemned the statement given by the Delhi CM that it was the Delhi Government that regularised the services of Kashmiri Migrant Teachers (KMT). Signed by Dilip Bhan, Co-ordinator of the teachers’ association, the statement noted down the timeline of the court cases that led to the Supreme Court’s verdict forcing the Delhi government to give them jobs.
Another lie of @ArvindKejriwal exposed where he said that he helped #KashmiriPandit teachers.
— Ashoke Pandit (@ashokepandit) March 28, 2022
The truth is he went against the high court single bench , Double bench judgements to Supreme Court where his plea was rejected. #AntiHinduKejriwal pic.twitter.com/PfznjeiQoT
On June 6, 2010, KMT approached Delhi high Court demanding regularising of their jobs. At that time, Congress leader Sheila Dikshit was the Chief Minister of Delhi. The case continued for five years, and in 2015, the Single Bench of the Delhi High Court delivered the judgement in favour of KMT and ordered the Government to regularize its services. At that time, Arvind Kejriwal was the Chief Minister of Delhi.
The Delhi Government under Kejriwal challenged the verdict in the Double Bench of the Delhi High Court. The case continued for another three years, and on May 21, 2018, Double Bench also passed the judgement in favour of KMT and directed the Delhi Government, led by Arvind Kejriwal, to regularize the services of the migrant teachers.
The press release noted that the Delhi Government assured to regularise the services of KMT as per the directions of the High Court. However, contrary to the assurance, the Delhi Government approached the Supreme Court of India against the High Court’s judgement.
Soon after the petition was filed by the Delhi Government, the apex court decided to dismiss it and upheld High Court’s judgement to regularise the services of KMT. The Supreme Court dismissed the petition on October 26, 2018, and the Delhi government took almost three months to issue a notification regularizing the services as they had no options left.
The Press release added, “The above events clearly indicate that the Delhi Government was never interested in regularising the services of KMT. In fact, the Delhi Government opposed the regularisation till the very end.”
‘It was court that gave us jobs not Kejriwal-led government’: Dilip Bhan
Dilip Bhan, in conversation with Navika Kumar, Group Editor, Times Now, explained the series of events. He said, “It was Bharatiya Janata Party’s Madan Lal Khurana’s Government in power (in 1994). In order to give us some relief, he gave Kashmiri Teachers jobs on contracts. The idea was that in a few months, terrorism would tone down in Kashmir, and the Pandits would return, but it did not happen. In 2010 we went to High Court. In 2015 Single Bench gave a verdict in our favour.”
#KejriwalKashmirFilesRow
— TIMES NOW (@TimesNow) March 29, 2022
Services of Kashmiri migrant teachers were regularised by the high court: Dilip Bhan, Migrant Teachers Association counters Arvind Kejriwal’s claims@RichaSharmaB | @anchoramitaw pic.twitter.com/zv9F4TYdlE
He added, “At that time, Kejriwal-led AAP was in power. We went to meet him and requested him to regularise the jobs. He assured us, and we waited. When I contacted our deputy director, he informed us that the verdict was challenged in front of the double bench. The case continued till 2018, and the double bench also gave a verdict in our favour. Finally, they challenged the judgement in SC, but the apex court dismissed their petition. They directed the Government to give Kashmiri Pandits permanent jobs. It was a court that ordered to give us jobs, not the Kejriwal government.”
The verdict of 2018
In 2018, the Double Bench of Delhi High Court, led by Justice S Ravinder Bhat and Justice Deepa Sharma, gave the verdict in favour of Kashmiri Migrant Teachers. In the judgement, it was mentioned that in 1994, when BJP leader Madan Lal Khurana was Chief Minister of Delhi, they noticed that some of the migrants were trained teachers.
A cabinet meeting was held on April 2, 1994. It was decided in a cabinet meeting that one educated member from each such family would be appointed as a teacher depending on his or her capacity. They were appointed in schools run by the Directorate of Education, MCD and NDMC. The benefit was only available for the migrants living in camps run by the Government.
It further stated the teachers appealed to the Government from 1998 onwards (Congress was in power) to regularize their appointments. They also appeared in Court, where the single bench judge said in the verdict that they did not have the right to appeal for the regularization of their jobs. The Kashmiri Migrant Teachers appealed against the judgement in High Court that directed the Government in 2015 (AAP was in power) to regularize the jobs.
An interesting point was made in the judgement that in May 2000, the Secretary of the Ministry of Human Resources and Development or MHRD (now Ministry of Education), Department of Education, had written to the officials of the Delhi Government (Congress’s Sheila Dikshit was CM) that when the teachers were appointed on contract basis in 1994, “there was an implicit policy decision in the Ministry of Home Affairs that the immigrant teachers had come to Delhi on a temporary basis and, had to be, sent back at some stage.”
It further stated that MHRD had asked the Delhi government to do a screening of the teachers and appoint those on permanent jobs as a teacher if they meet the criteria.
Those who did not clear the exam could be given one-time relaxation, and the criteria of age limit were suggested to be ignored.
In 2006 (UPA was in power at the Centre), the Ministry of Minority Affairs wrote to the CM of Delhi (Congress was in power) and requested to regularize the teachers. It was mentioned that the contractual teachers were not even paid salaries on time.
Coming back to the High Court case, after the single bench judge directed the Government to regularize the teachers, the NCT of Delhi (Delhi Government) appealed against at Double Bench of the High Court. However, the Delhi Cabinet, while the petition was in Court, sent a proposal to the LG for relaxation in some provisions in order to regularize the jobs.
LG agreed to the proposal at large but asked the Delhi Government to ask the Law Department (under AAP’s Law Minister) to examine the legal damnations of the proposed policy as suggested by the Service Department. The proposal went cold for two years. In 2017, the Government of Delhi again proposed relaxation via cabinet decision, but the decisions were not brought into effect anytime soon. It is further notable that in the same year, as per the judgement, NCT of Delhi had decided not to regularize the KMT as “it was felt that regularization would create a wrong precedent.”
Petition in Supreme Court
Meanwhile, a petition was filed in the Supreme Court by the Delhi Government challenging the High Court’s judgement. It was dismissed by the apex court in October 2018, and three months later, the Delhi Government finally regularized the KMT, after trying all avenues to prevent it.
