The Principal Bench of the Madhya Pradesh High Court at Jabalpur, comprising Acting Chief Justice Vivek Rusia and Justice Pradeep Mittal, issued notice on July 14 to the State of Madhya Pradesh and the Union of India in the matter of Saurabh Tripathi v. State of Madhya Pradesh and Others. The notice was issued after the court examined a public interest litigation that alleges a systemic failure in the staffing of government schools across the state.
The petitioner, advocate Saurabh Tripathi, submitted that the Comptroller and Auditor General’s Report No. 10 of 2025, a compliance audit covering 66,814 government schools for the period 2018 to March 2023, revealed that 1,895 schools were functioning without a single teacher. Of these, 1,379 were primary schools and 479 were middle schools. The audit was tabled in the Madhya Pradesh Legislature on February 20, 2026, and its findings were corroborated by investigative reports published in the Indore edition of Dainik Bhaskar in April 2026.
The petition further pointed out that, conversely, 435 schools with zero student enrolment continued to have teachers posted to them. Among these, 128 teachers were deployed across 85 schools where no teaching posts had ever been sanctioned. The petitioner argued that this juxtaposition reflects a gross mismanagement of human resources within the education department.
Beyond the immediate vacancy figures, the petitioner highlighted a broader staffing imbalance. The audit showed that 6,607 schools were operating with 11,733 teachers in excess of their sanctioned strength, while 29,116 schools faced a shortage amounting to nearly fifty percent of their required teaching staff. A rural‑urban disparity was also noted, with vacancy rates of 28.32 percent in rural areas compared to 3.46 percent in urban areas.
The petitioner linked these staffing anomalies to a decline in academic performance, citing a drop in the Class X pass percentage from 67.74 percent in the academic year 2018‑19 to 38.53 percent in 2021‑22. Additionally, the petitioner noted that only Rs 35.71 crore of the allocated Rs 165.09 crore budget for teacher training had been utilised, and that fourteen officials remained illegally attached to other departments for periods extending up to twenty years, drawing salaries of Rs 3.27 crore from the Education Department.
In light of these allegations, the petitioner sought directions for the immediate deployment of teachers to the 1,895 schools lacking any teaching staff, and the formulation of a time‑bound rationalisation policy to address the vacancy gap and correct the excess deployment elsewhere.
The State was represented by Advocate Anubhav Jain, while the Union of India appeared through Assistant Solicitor General Sunil Kumar Jain and advocate Dev Sharma. The petitioner appeared in person.
The Division Bench, after hearing the preliminary submissions, directed the State and the Union to file their respective responses within four weeks. The court emphasized that the notice was issued to enable the authorities to address the factual matrix presented in the petition and to consider the reliefs sought.
The matter remains pending for further orders, with the court likely to examine the adequacy of the State’s response and the Union’s position on the alleged mismanagement of teacher resources in Madhya Pradesh’s government schools.