APHC010438442008 IN THE HIGH COURT OF ANDHRA PRADESH AT AMARAVATI WRIT PETITION NO: 5681 of 2008 Bench Sr.No:-14 [3552] P. Satyavathi Devi ...Petitioner Vs. The Government of Andhra Pradesh and Others ...Respondent(s) ********** Advocate for Petitioner: Ms.P REVATHI Advocate(s) for Respondent(s): GP FOR EDUCATION, GP FOR FINANCE PLANNING, GP FOR SCHOOL EDUCATION CORAM :THE CHIEF JUSTICE DHIRAJ SINGH THAKUR SRI JUSTICE CHALLA GUNARANJAN DATE : 6th March 2026 ORDER: (per Hon’ble Sri Justice Challa Gunaranjan) Petitioner assails the provisions of Act 37 of 2005 namely A.P. Aided Educational Institutions Employees (Regulation of Pay) Act, 2005, to be unconstitutional and falling foul of Articles 14, 16, 21 and 300-A of Constitution of India and consequently, to direct the respondents to pay the increments, pension, considering revision of pay scales as entitled to without reference to aforesaid enactment. 2. (a) Petitioner stated to have been appointed as Hindi Pandit in Unaided post with 3rd respondent on 30.06.1983. The 2 HCJ & CGR, J W.P. No.5681 of 2008 3rd respondent got admitted to grant-in-aid and accordingly, she came to be absorbed into grant-in-aid on 01.04.1992. She claims that her pay came to be fixed by the management taking into account the increments earned in the unaided post, which came to be approved by the official respondents. (b) It is claimed that the Government had sanctioned selection grade scale to all teachers who completed 10 years of service in pursuance to G.O.Ms.No.164, dated 01.06.1982, therefore, petitioner had been enjoying such increments before her post being merged to grant-in-aid and even later. However, the Government had brought in Ordinance No.9/1999, by which persons employed in private educational institutions were made eligible to count only the service rendered in aided post for the purpose of fixation of automatic advancement scheme and career advancement scheme and the service otherwise rendered in unaided post was literally made redundant. (c) Further, the said Ordinance was given retrospective effect from 01.01.1980. Later, it had taken the shape of enactment by Act 9 of 2000. On challenge, the said enactment was initially made prospective by issuing an amendment Act 5 of 2000. 3 HCJ & CGR, J W.P. No.5681 of 2008 However, yet again State seems to have come up with Ordinance No.3 of 2005, which was more or less in same lines as the earlier ordinance and enactment. (d) The same has been challenged and Division Bench of this Court in Y.Sidda Reddy v. Government of Andhra Pradesh and others1 has struck down Section 4(1) of the Ordinance and insofar as it dealt with the aspect of pension, was held to be valid and accordingly, came to be upheld. However, it is stated that even before the said ordinance came to be tested and decided by aforesaid judgment, State had come up with impugned enactment and by virtue of Section 7, the ordinance came to be repealed. Even the said enactment has later been struck down by Division Bench of this Court in W.P. No.3460 of 2010 and batch, by its order dated 23.08.2017. (e) Accordingly, learned counsel for petitioner would urge to allow the writ petition in terms of aforesaid judgment and orders passed by Coordinate Benches of this Court. Further, it is also urged that, consequently, the 3rd respondent be directed to pay the petitioner the amounts as entitled under automatic advancement scheme/career advancement scheme, considering 1 2006 (3) ALD 546 (DB) 4 HCJ & CGR, J W.P. No.5681 of 2008 the revised scales as applied to the said post, besides directing the official respondents to pay the pensionary benefits. (f) The respondents have filed counter admitting to the fact of the validity of Ordinance No.3 of 2005 being subject matter of challenge in Y.Sidda Reddy1, in which, Division Bench of this Court, while upholding the Virus of Section 3, declared Section 4(1) as unconstitutional. Further, it is also stated that petitioner is being settled pensionary benefits as the official respondents were legally obligated to do so. 3. Heard Smt.K.Rajyalakshmi, learned counsel, representing Smt.P.Revathi, learned counsel for petitioner on record and learned Government Pleader for School Education for the respondents. 4. There was much controversy regarding the entitlement for appropriate scales of pay for the teaching staff and also extending the benefit of automatic advancement scheme and career advancement scheme for those who had completed the requisite number of years in service. Aforesaid schemes were essentially formulated by the State primarily for benefiting employees of the State and later, extended even to teachers working in private 5 HCJ & CGR, J W.P. No.5681 of 2008 unaided educational institutions by virtue of G.O.Ms.No.164, dated 01.06.1982. 5. The legal obligation of State to extend necessary financial assistance to the Educational Institutions to which those schemes were made applicable was never at issue. The schemes did not create any legal obligation on the State to extend the financial assistance to meet expenditure to be incurred by managements of private aided educational institutions on account of implementation of the said schemes. In that background, in Y.Sidda Reddy1, the Division Bench came to conclusion that the ordinance which is later culminated into impugned enactment since purported to declare that only aided service rendered would be taken into consideration for determining the eligibility of the employees for aforesaid benefits, which do not have any financial consequence on the State rather beneficiaries under the scheme would have to be compensated by payment in such higher scale by the managements, the provision to that extent was held to be illegal and unconstitutional. 6. The Court felt that State probably could have made a declaration with regard to limits of financial liability of the State by 6 HCJ & CGR, J W.P. No.5681 of 2008 clearly envisaging that the benefits under the scheme qua unaided service to be met by the management rather than completely restricting the service in unaided post. 7. Insofar as the pension was concerned, by virtue of Section 3, as State has taken itself the obligation to settle the pension taking into account entire service of the employees both aided and unaided, the said provision came to be upheld. It is apt to refer to following paras from the said judgment: “64. The above being the correct legal position as we understand, the decision of the learned Single Judge in K.C. Venkateswarlu's case (supra) in coming to the conclusion that there was a reduction of the pay of the employees of a junior college (we can take judicial notice of the fact that in the State of Andhra Pradesh, children attending the junior colleges and other colleges are above the age of 14 with rare exceptions) by virtue of the extension of grant-in-aid is wholly unjustified. The learned Judge ignored the fact - inspite of a specific pleading by the State - that it was basically the obligation of the Management to pay the salary in accordance with law and failed to see that the State's decision to render some financial assistance to the management does not in any why alter the legal obligations of the employer. However, the decision stood reversed in appeal by the Division 7 HCJ & CGR, J W.P. No.5681 of 2008 Bench. Therefore, the obligation of the State to provide grant-in-aid by fully reimbursing the private aided educational institutions as laid down by the learned Single Judge in K.C. Venkateswarlu's case (supra) stood obliterated by the judgment of the Division Bench in Secretary to Government v. K.C. Venkateswarlu (supra). All the subsequent decisions of this Court in various writ petitions whereunder similar claims of the writ petitioners were accepted placing reliance on the judgment of the learned Single Judge in K.C. Venkateswarlu's case (supra) are obviously erroneous decisions. 66. These schemes popularly called the Career Advancement Scheme' and Automatic Advancement Scheme' were formulated by the State of Andhra Pradesh primarily for benefitting the employees of the State. The Career Advancement Scheme initially came to be propounded in G.O.Ms. No. 117, Finance and Planning P/V.PRC.I) Department, dated 25-5-1981. The substance of the scheme is that the employees who complete 10 years of service in a particular scale of pay are made eligible to a Special Grade Post carrying a higher scale of pay. The benefits of the said scheme were extended to teachers working in private aided educational institutions by G.O.Ms. No. 164, Finance and Planning (F.W.PRC.I) Department, dated 1-6-1982.” 8. The aforesaid reasoning of the Division Bench in Y.Sidda Reddy1 has been equally applied to test even the provisions of 8 HCJ & CGR, J W.P. No.5681 of 2008 impugned enactment by Coordinate Bench in W.P. No.3460 of 2010 and batch and eventually disposed of writ petitions by declaring the impugned enactment, except to the extent of Section 3 dealing with pension, to be unconstitutional. Hence, this writ petition is also disposed of accordingly. 9. It is needless to say that the service rendered by petitioner in unaided post shall be considered for evaluating the benefits under automatic advancement scheme/career advancement scheme and that the 3rd respondent shall settle the petitioner the monetary benefits. Equally, the respondents 1 and 2 shall settle the petitioner's pensionary benefits as entitled to. No costs. As a sequel, miscellaneous petitions pending in this case, if any, shall stand closed. DHIRAJ SINGH THAKUR, CJ CHALLA GUNARANJAN, J ss