NEW DELHI: Tamil Nadu has taken a bold step, becoming the first state to formally challenge a Supreme Court verdict that presented school teachers with a stark choice: either qualify for the Teaching Eligibility Test (TET) within two years or face compulsory retirement.
The contentious judgment, delivered on September 1 by a two-judge Bench comprising Justices Dipankar Datta and Manmohan, utilized the Supreme Court’s extraordinary powers under Article 142 of the Constitution. It mandated that all teachers nationwide with more than five years remaining in their service must successfully clear the TET within two years to continue their employment. The court’s rationale was rooted in the Right to Education (RTE) Act of 2009, which came into effect in 2010 and stipulated that teachers must pass the TET. Only those with fewer than five years until retirement were exempted from this requirement.
Justice Dipankar Datta, who authored the judgment, explicitly stated: “In-service teachers recruited prior to enactment of the RTE Act and having more than five years to retire on superannuation are concerned, they shall be under an obligation to qualify the TET within two years from date in order to continue in service. If any of such teachers fail to qualify the TET within the time that we have allowed, they shall have to quit service. They may be compulsorily retired; and paid whatever terminal benefits they are entitled to.”
Following this ruling, numerous states, including Uttar Pradesh and Kerala, have indicated their intent to seek a review. Tamil Nadu, however, was the first to act, filing its review petition swiftly through senior advocate P. Wilson and advocate Sabarish Subramanium.
Tamil Nadu’s petition highlights the immense scale of the potential crisis, noting that the judgment directly impacts approximately four lakh teachers within the state alone. Should these directives be enforced, the state warns of an impending catastrophe: “classrooms without teachers.” The petition emphasizes that children would be the ultimate victims, as teachers, under immense pressure to secure their livelihoods, would be forced to prioritize TET preparation over daily classroom instruction for the next two years.
A key argument put forth by Tamil Nadu is that the provisions and norms of the RTE Act cannot be applied retrospectively. The state further clarified that several state governments, including Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, and Odisha, had previously received relaxations from the Centre under Section 23(2) of the RTE Act. These relaxations were granted specifically due to a recognized shortage of trained teachers and an insufficient number of teacher education institutions in these regions.
The state’s review petition passionately argues: “The hardship caused is not confined to the teaching community. The State of Tamil Nadu alone employs 4,49,850 teachers in government and aided schools, of whom 3,90,458 are not TET-qualified. If the directions are implemented, the entire school system faces the imminent prospect of collapse, with mass disqualification of teachers and denial of classroom instruction to millions of children. This creates a direct conflict with Article 21A of the Constitution, which guarantees the fundamental right to education. The balance between ensuring quality of education and safeguarding the right to education must be maintained by prospective measures, not by retroactive exclusion of nearly the entire teaching force.”
Furthermore, Tamil Nadu contends that “even if the objective of enhancing teaching quality is accepted as legitimate, compelling pre-2010 appointees to pass TET on pain of disqualification is manifestly disproportionate.”
As a constructive alternative, the state proposed “less intrusive alternatives” to achieve the goal of improved teaching quality. These suggestions include in-service training, comprehensive capacity-building programs, regular refresher courses, or bridging programs. Such measures, the state argues, could enhance educational standards without jeopardizing the livelihoods of thousands of dedicated educators and, crucially, without destabilizing the entire education system.