Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Sept 19: The High Court of Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh has upheld the termination of a Government school teacher from Kathua district after it was conclusively established that he had secured appointment on the basis of a fake 10+2 marks certificate.
A Division Bench comprising Justice Sanjeev Kumar and Justice Sanjay Parihar delivered the judgment while allowing a writ petition filed by the Union Territory of J&K, challenging a Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT) order that had directed reinstatement of the teacher.
The respondent Roshan Din of Chack Wazir Labjoo, Kathua was initially engaged as an Educational Volunteer (EV) in 2004 under the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan. In 2008, he was converted into a Rehbar-e-Taleem (ReT) teacher and later regularized as a General Line Teacher in November 2013.
However, during a document verification exercise in 2019—carried out after the Government restructured teaching cadres it was found that the 10+2 marks card he had submitted in 2008 was fabricated. Records from the National Institute of Open Schooling (NIOS) showed that instead of clearing all subjects in 2009, Roshan Din had in fact failed English in the April 2010 session.
He later re-appeared in the exam and cleared all subjects in 2021, but by then, the Chief Education Officer, Kathua, terminated his services on October 29, 2021.
Roshan Din challenged the termination before the CAT, arguing that no departmental enquiry was conducted and no opportunity of hearing was given. The Tribunal sided with him in December 2024, quashing his termination and ordering reinstatement.
After hearing Government Advocate Sumeet Bhatia for the UT of J&K and Advocate Mohsin Bhat for the respondent, the High Court disagreed, observing that the teacher’s conduct amounted to fraudulent misrepresentation, adding by appearing afresh in the 10+2 examination in 2021, he had implicitly admitted that his earlier certificate was false.
Accordingly, the High Court set aside the CAT order, restored the termination order of 2021 and dismissed the teacher’s plea.
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