S Delhi private school teachers initiate legal action for full salaries

New Delhi: Eight teachers of a South Delhi private school have now sent a legal notice to their employer for improper salary payments, not issuing appointment letters and not providing benefits that were promised upon employment.

The teachers have alleged that the school pays them a certain sum every month via cheque but takes more than half the said amount back in cash. Since March 2020, they've been receiving barely one-third of their actual salary, that too, in cash, the teachers allege. All eight employees also said they have not been issued appointment letters even though two of them had been working there for over a decade.

The school in question is the Gyandeep Vidya Mandir School.

The legal notice to the school also states that all employees are "qualified trained teachers as per Section 10(1) of the Delhi School Education Act,1973" and as such are "legally entitled to salaries as per the 7th pay commission w.e.f. January 01, 2016".

Advocate Ashok Agarwal, representing the teachers, said that though bizarre, this is a common practice in not just small but even bigger, seemingly posh schools across the city. "For example, if the teacher's salary as per the pay commission should be Rs 70K, they deposit a cheque worth Rs 70K but ask for Rs 30-35K back in cash."

"Post a contentious fee hike in 2009, the CAG finally audited 25 private schools in Delhi and published a report in 2010. This malpractice in salary payments has been officially noted in that report."

While Agarwal has said that the notice was served to the school management on February 19 and it has not yet responded with lawyers or privately, multiple attempts were made to reach the school administration for response to the allegations but to no avail.