Introduction:
The Supreme Court of India, in Siyaram Education Society v. Chhaya D/o Baliram Dhave & Ors. and connected matters, examined an important question concerning the scope of writ jurisdiction under Article 226 of the Constitution of India against private unaided educational institutions. The Bench comprising Justice Manoj Misra and Justice Vijay Bishnoi considered whether teachers employed in private unaided schools could maintain writ petitions before the High Court for enforcement of statutory pay scales prescribed under the Maharashtra Employees of Private Schools (Conditions of Service) Regulation Rules, 1981. The judgment is significant because it clarifies that the absence of State ownership or direct State control over an educational institution does not, by itself, prevent the High Court from exercising its writ jurisdiction where the institution is performing a public duty and the rights claimed by its employees arise from statutory provisions.
The dispute originated before the Bombay High Court, Aurangabad Bench, where teachers employed by private unaided schools approached the Court seeking implementation of the pay scales prescribed under the applicable statutory framework. The teachers contended that although their institutions were privately managed and unaided, their conditions of service, including their entitlement to salary, were regulated by statutory rules. They therefore sought enforcement of the prescribed pay scales through proceedings under Article 226 of the Constitution.
The Bombay High Court accepted the teachers’ contention and directed the concerned institutions to fix their salaries in accordance with Schedule ‘C’ of the Maharashtra Employees of Private Schools (Conditions of Service) Regulation Rules, 1981. The institutions were further directed to pay regular salaries from April 2017 and clear the arrears within six months. At the same time, the High Court restrained the institutions from recovering amounts that had already been paid in excess.
Aggrieved by the decision, the private educational institutions challenged the maintainability of the writ petitions before the Supreme Court. Their principal contention was that a private unaided institution did not fall within the traditional conception of the State or an authority under Article 12 of the Constitution. According to the appellants, the relationship between a private school and its teachers was essentially contractual and therefore disputes concerning salary and service conditions should ordinarily be pursued through remedies available under private law rather than through a writ petition.
The Supreme Court, however, rejected this broad proposition. It distinguished between an ordinary private contractual dispute and a claim founded upon a statutory obligation. The Court held that where a statute regulates an educational institution and imposes a duty upon it to provide teachers with prescribed statutory benefits, the performance of that obligation acquires a public character. In such circumstances, the fact that the institution is privately owned or unaided does not constitute an absolute bar to the exercise of writ jurisdiction.
The judgment thus reinforces an important principle of administrative and constitutional law: for the purpose of determining whether a writ petition is maintainable, the nature of the duty sought to be enforced may be more important than the legal form or ownership of the body against which relief is sought. Where a private body is entrusted with a public duty and the right claimed by the petitioner flows from a statute, Article 226 may be invoked for enforcement of that duty.
Arguments of the Parties:
The appellants, namely the private educational institutions, challenged the maintainability of the teachers’ writ petitions principally on the ground that they were private unaided institutions and did not constitute the State or an instrumentality of the State under Article 12 of the Constitution. Their argument was founded upon the distinction between public authorities and private entities. According to the appellants, a writ petition could not ordinarily be used to enforce a contractual obligation arising out of the relationship between an employee and a privately managed institution.
The appellants sought to characterize the teachers’ claims as essentially disputes relating to their conditions of employment. In their submission, the claim for a particular salary or pay scale arose within the employment relationship between the teachers and the management. Since the institutions were neither government departments nor government-aided bodies, the appellants argued that the teachers could not automatically invoke the extraordinary constitutional jurisdiction of the High Court merely because the institutions were engaged in imparting education.
The appellants’ position also relied upon the established principle that the writ jurisdiction of constitutional courts is not intended to provide a remedy for every private dispute. Article 226 undoubtedly confers wide powers upon High Courts, but those powers are generally exercised to secure performance of public duties. A dispute which remains purely private or contractual in character ordinarily falls outside the proper scope of a writ of mandamus.
The appellants therefore contended that the teachers’ claim should be treated as a private employment dispute. If the teachers believed that they were entitled to higher salaries, their remedy, according to the appellants, was to pursue an appropriate statutory, contractual or civil remedy rather than directly approach the High Court under Article 226. The appellants consequently questioned the very jurisdiction of the High Court to issue directions concerning the fixation and payment of salaries by a private unaided institution.
The respondents, on the other hand, argued that the dispute could not be reduced to an ordinary private contractual claim. Their entitlement to the prescribed pay scales was not based merely upon the terms of their individual employment contracts. Rather, the right flowed from statutory rules governing the service conditions of employees of private schools. The Maharashtra statutory framework regulated several aspects of employment in recognized private educational institutions, including recruitment and salary conditions. Therefore, once the statute prescribed a particular scale of pay, the institution was under a corresponding legal obligation to comply with it.
The teachers emphasized that the educational institutions in question were recognized under the statutory framework and were performing the important public function of imparting education. Recognition was not merely a private arrangement between the management and the teachers; it placed the institutions within a statutory regulatory structure. The management could not therefore rely upon its private character to avoid obligations expressly imposed upon it by law.
The respondents further submitted that Article 226 is considerably wider in scope than Article 32 because the High Court’s writ jurisdiction extends not only to the State and authorities falling within Article 12 but also to “any person or authority” in appropriate cases. The decisive consideration, according to the teachers, was whether the duty sought to be enforced was a public duty. Since the obligation to pay the statutory salary was imposed by law, enforcement of that obligation could properly be sought through a writ petition.
The teachers also relied upon the distinction between enforcement of a private contractual term and enforcement of a statutory right. They accepted that a purely private dispute arising from an employment contract would not ordinarily justify the issuance of a writ against a private educational institution. However, they maintained that the present case was fundamentally different because the statutory rules themselves created the obligation relating to salary. Consequently, the writ proceedings were directed at enforcement of a statutory duty rather than at enforcement of an ordinary private promise.
The respondents therefore supported the Bombay High Court’s view that the statutory regulation of educational institutions created a public element in their functioning. Once the State had legislatively prescribed minimum service conditions for teachers, including applicable pay scales, the institutions could not disregard those requirements merely because they were unaided or privately managed.
Court’s Judgment:
The Supreme Court dismissed the appeals filed by the private educational institutions and upheld the decision of the Bombay High Court, Aurangabad Bench. The central issue before the Court was not simply whether the appellants were private bodies, but whether the duty sought to be enforced against them was a public duty arising from a statutory framework.
The Court began by drawing a clear distinction between a purely private contractual dispute and enforcement of rights that originate in statute. This distinction was crucial to the outcome. The Supreme Court observed that if the teachers had merely sought enforcement of contractual terms contained in their individual employment agreements with the private institutions, the maintainability of a writ petition would have been substantially different. In such a situation, the dispute would ordinarily fall within the realm of private law.
In support of this distinction, the Court referred to its earlier decision in Army Welfare Education Society, New Delhi v. Sunil Kumar Sharma & Ors., reported as 2024 LiveLaw (SC) 464. The earlier decision illustrated the principle that writ jurisdiction should not ordinarily be invoked for adjudication of purely private contractual disputes. The Supreme Court in the present case, however, found that the teachers’ claims did not belong to that category.
The entitlement asserted by the teachers was founded upon statutory rules regulating the service conditions of employees in private schools. In other words, the source of the right was not merely an employment contract but legislation and the rules framed under it. Correspondingly, the obligation upon the institutions to pay the prescribed salary was not simply a contractual undertaking voluntarily assumed by the management. It was a legal obligation imposed within the statutory regulatory framework governing recognized educational institutions.
This distinction allowed the Court to reconcile two apparently competing principles: first, that writ jurisdiction should not ordinarily be used to resolve private contractual disputes; and second, that Article 226 permits the High Court to issue appropriate writs against persons or bodies where a public duty is involved.
The Court emphasized the breadth of Article 226. Unlike a narrow approach that would confine writ jurisdiction only to bodies falling within Article 12, Article 226 empowers High Courts to issue writs not merely to the State or its instrumentalities but to “any person or authority” in appropriate circumstances. Consequently, the question whether a writ can be issued against a private body cannot be answered solely by asking whether that body is “State” within the meaning of Article 12.
The nature of the duty therefore becomes the critical consideration. A private institution may remain a private body in terms of ownership, management and financing, yet it may nevertheless be subject to a public duty imposed by statute. Where such a duty exists, the constitutional jurisdiction of the High Court may be invoked to ensure its performance.
The Court specifically recognized the public character associated with imparting education by a recognized institution. Education is not treated merely as a private commercial activity when it is carried on within a statutory regulatory framework. An institution recognized under law performs a function having a direct public element because the activity of education serves an important societal and public purpose and is subject to legislative and regulatory requirements.
The Court consequently reasoned that teaching activity within such an institution has a direct connection with the performance of that public duty. Teachers are not incidental to the educational function; they are central to the institution’s performance of its statutory and public responsibilities. Therefore, where the rights of teaching staff arise directly from statutory provisions regulating the institution, enforcement of those rights can fall within the scope of Article 226.
The Supreme Court made it clear that the private character of an educational institution is not decisive. What matters is the nature of the obligation sought to be enforced. If the institution is legally required to perform a particular duty and that duty possesses a public character, the High Court is not prevented from issuing a writ merely because the institution is privately owned or unaided.
This approach is consistent with the broader development of Indian constitutional jurisprudence concerning private bodies performing public functions. The writ jurisdiction of constitutional courts has never been confined exclusively to disputes involving government departments. The courts have recognized that certain private bodies, because of the nature of functions entrusted to them or obligations imposed upon them, may become subject to public law remedies in appropriate circumstances.
At the same time, the Supreme Court carefully preserved the limits of writ jurisdiction. It did not hold that every dispute between a teacher and a private school can be brought before the High Court under Article 226. The Court expressly cautioned that a writ petition should not be entertained where the duty sought to be enforced falls entirely within the realm of private law.
The principle emerging from the judgment is therefore not that every private educational institution becomes equivalent to the State. Rather, the principle is that the identity of the body is not by itself determinative. The Court must examine the nature and source of the duty. Where the duty is statutory and carries a public element, the writ remedy may be available even against a private unaided institution.
The Court’s reasoning is particularly important in relation to statutory pay scales. A salary dispute can ordinarily appear to be a private employment matter. However, when legislation or statutory rules prescribe the minimum or specific pay scale applicable to teachers and impose a corresponding obligation upon the educational institution, the legal character of the dispute changes. The teacher is then seeking enforcement of a statutory entitlement, while the institution is being called upon to perform a statutory obligation.
Applying this principle to the facts before it, the Supreme Court found that the teachers’ claim was founded upon the Maharashtra Employees of Private Schools (Conditions of Service) Regulation Rules, 1981. The Bombay High Court had directed the institutions to implement the applicable Schedule ‘C’ pay scales, pay regular salaries from April 2017 and clear the arrears within the stipulated period. The Supreme Court found no jurisdictional defect in the High Court entertaining the writ petitions for enforcement of those statutory obligations.
The Court’s approach also protects the effectiveness of statutory regulation. If a private institution could simply disregard a statutory obligation on the ground that it was unaided or privately managed, the regulatory framework enacted by the State would lose much of its practical force. Recognition under a statute carries with it corresponding legal responsibilities. An institution cannot selectively rely upon its private status while simultaneously operating within and benefiting from a statutory regulatory regime.
The judgment therefore places emphasis upon substance rather than form. The form of the institution—whether private, unaided or otherwise—is not the controlling factor. The substance of the obligation and the source of the right are what determine whether a public law remedy is available.
The Supreme Court’s conclusion can also be understood through the traditional purpose of a writ of mandamus. Mandamus is fundamentally directed towards compelling the performance of a public duty. In the present case, the duty to comply with the prescribed statutory pay scales was not merely a matter of private contractual choice. It was a duty arising from the governing statutory rules. Once such a duty is established, the High Court can exercise its constitutional jurisdiction to secure compliance.
The Court therefore rejected the appellants’ objection to maintainability and upheld the High Court’s order. The appeals filed by the private educational institutions were dismissed. The decision confirms that teachers working in private unaided schools may invoke Article 226 where their claim concerns enforcement of a statutory right and the corresponding obligation imposed upon the institution has a public element.
The significance of the judgment extends beyond the immediate dispute over salary. It provides an important safeguard for teachers employed in privately managed educational institutions. Private management cannot, by itself, become a justification for non-compliance with statutory service conditions. At the same time, the judgment does not transform every employment dispute into a constitutional proceeding. The dividing line remains the nature of the right and duty involved.
Thus, the judgment establishes a balanced legal position. A private unaided educational institution is not automatically subject to writ jurisdiction merely because it imparts education. However, when it is recognized and regulated under a statute, and that statute creates enforceable obligations concerning teachers’ service conditions, the institution may be amenable to a writ for enforcement of those statutory duties. The Court’s reasoning reinforces the constitutional role of High Courts in ensuring that statutory obligations carrying a public character are not defeated merely because the entity responsible for performing them happens to be privately managed.
In the final result, the Supreme Court dismissed the appeals in Siyaram Education Society v. Chhaya D/o Baliram Dhave & Ors. and connected matters and affirmed the maintainability of the teachers’ writ petitions. The decision, reported as 2026 LiveLaw (SC) 819, therefore stands as an important authority on the intersection of private educational institutions, statutory service conditions, public duties and the expansive writ jurisdiction of High Courts under Article 226 of the Constitution.