The court clarified that “nothing in the ruling attributes stigma to the content of the messages,” since no WhatsApp chats were recorded.

“In my opinion, the fact that a teacher had been sending text messages to a student, with a significant age difference, constitutes sufficient reason for the administration to be dissatisfied with the petitioner on probation,” the judge added.

The court noted that the petitioner issued a written apology on the day the message was discovered and that he had “not retracted his written confirmation or apology for reasons of coercion.”

The high court noted that the petitioner was hired as a probationary assistant professor on February 29, 2020, for three years. In December 2022, the school received complaints from parents about its messages to certain students. He later apologized in writing to the principal, “confirming his electronic contact with the student.”

“Local unrest is said to have broken out when a mob gathered over the matter, forcing the director to intervene and save the petitioner,” the court noted. On January 31, 2023, the school terminated his probation effective February 1 of that year, with pay in lieu of one month’s notice.

Lawyer Sugandh Deshmukh for the teacher claimed that since the probation was due to end in February 2023, he “became a permanent employee before the notice period expired”. Therefore, Deshmukh said, a law governing permanent employees should have been invoked, and due inquiry should have been initiated before arriving at any decision, with an opportunity for the petitioner to be heard.

“In my opinion, the management is entitled to adopt a zero tolerance policy in the specific factual matrix of the case and avoid future crises, keeping in mind that the petitioner was on probation and in law, the management was entitled to terminate the probation with one month’s notice or payment in lieu of notice. In my opinion, the management had enough material to form a reasonable opinion that conduct unbecoming of a school teacher is not satisfactory behaviour,” Justice Sundaresan observed.

The top court further observed that the petitioner, “without any stigma being attached to it”, “has had a soft landing within the ambit of Section 5(3) (power of school to dismiss its employees) of the Maharashtra Private School Employees Regulation (Conditions of Service) Act”.

The court, while dismissing the plea, held that the school management was entitled to dismiss the probationary student “without the full tenure that would have been applicable to a permanent employee.”