Cuttack: The Supreme Court has declined to interfere with a series of Orissa high court orders granting eligibility for full grant-in-aid under the GIA Order, 1994, to employees of aided educational institutions.The 1994 order provided for full salary grants to eligible teaching and non-teaching staff of private educational institutions. It was repealed on Feb 5, 2004 and replaced with a new order that limited the grant to partial assistance.A two-judge bench of the apex court comprising Justices Dipankar Datta and Satish Chandra Sharma, in an order dated Jan 23, dismissed the special leave petitions (SLPs) filed by the state govt challenging the HC’s ruling on May 5, 2025. “We are not inclined to interfere with the impugned judgment(s) and order(s) of the high court; hence, the special leave petitions are dismissed,” the bench said.The SLPs arose from a batch of appeals disposed of by the HC, which relied on an earlier landmark judgment delivered on March 19, 2025 by Justice Biraja Prasanna Satapathy. The court had held that unaided schools, girls’ schools, higher secondary schools and colleges could not be denied the benefit of GIA under the 1994 order if their cases had been duly recommended by the concerned directorates prior to the repeal of the scheme.Justice Satapathy, while deciding over 100 appeals arising from orders of the State Education Tribunal, upheld its decisions allowing grant-in-aid claims and set aside those rejecting such claims. He directed state authorities to extend the benefits under the 1994 order and complete the entire exercise within six months.Subsequently, similar appeals were disposed of on May 5, 2025 by applying the March 19 judgment, paving the way for uniform implementation across cases.
