Hyderabad: The Supreme Court on Wednesday asked the state governments of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana state to take immediate steps to relieve the teachers working as PAs or personal secretaries and private assistants to ministers, MPs and MLAs and post them to the schools concerned.

The Bench made it clear that providing basic amenities in schools and implementation of RTE Act was the responsibility of the state government.

The bench comprising Justice Dipak Misra and Justice C Nagappan was dealing with a batch of petitions seeking directions to AP and Telangana governments to take steps for filling up of teachers’ vacancies in government schools.

During the course of hearing, Sravan Kumar, counsel for Telangana Parents Foundation, pointed out that many teachers in the state have been sent on deputation to work with MPs, MLAs and ministers. Senior counsel P Vishwanath Shetty, appearing for Telangana state contended that the said practice was stopped and the persons who were sent on deputation had been withdrawn.

Sravan Kumar submitted that 90 per cent posts in supervisory cadre have not been filled up and as a result the schools are not being supervised.

The bench then directed the Telangana state chief secretary to file an affidavit as to why so many posts remained vacant in the supervisory cadre and how long the state will take to fill the vacancies. The bench posted the matter to Sept 7 for further hearing.