The High Court ruling on a four-year-old case has breathed new life into issues involving the Teaching Service Commission and several denominational boards.

On Wednesday, High Court Judge Sebastain Ventour ruled in the 2009 case between now retired teacher Kamla Jagessar and the TSC, which found favour with other denominational boards out of favour with the TSC.

The case, which drew arguments from current Attorney General Anand Ramlogan on the claimaint's behalf and Senior Counsel Russell Martineau and Douglas Mendes for the defendant, challenged the decision of TSC failure and/or refusal to promote Jagessar.

Jagessar claimed the TSC failed in its statutory duty to call upon the Permanent Secretary, to ask the Presbyterian Secretary, to ask the Presbyterian Board to reconsider its recommendation for filling the then vacant post of principal of the Penal Presbyterian School.

Jagessar also requested an interim injunction directing the TSC to "preserve the vacant office of principal" pending hearing and determination of the claim.

The Court was also asked to make a legal determination on the TSC's authority to make appointments to assisted schools without board approval and some statement on whether the board of an assisted school can veto appointment of teachers at assisted schools.

The evidence presented to the Court included, inter alia, that Jagessar was appointed an Assistant Teacher at the same school in 1971, by 1998 she was upgraded to a "Teacher 1".

In 2006, Jagessar was appointed as acting vice principal for an eight-month period and then principal from February that same year.

But by 2008, when the general secretary of the Presbyterian Primary Schools Board of Education wrote to the TSC for the substantive post of Principal 1 at the Penal school, Jagessa''s name was not among the list of applicants and was never interviewed by the board.

By June, Jagessar attended an interview with the TSC and attained the "highest marks among those interviewed" and it recommended her for the substantive post.

By July, the Director of Personnel Administration wrote to the Presbyterian Board stating that the Commission proposed to appoint Jagessar.

However, by August, Jagessar's lawyer wrote a pre-action protocol letter to the TSC and Ministry of Education that the Presbyterian Board "intended to object" to Jagessar's appointment to the post.

In October 2009, the Presbyterian Board replied that it did not support the proposal to promote Jagessar on "religious or moral grounds".

But with regards to the boards rights, Ventour found that even assisted schools were the property of the respective denominational bodies.

"It stands to reason therefore that whoever is appointed to teach in these schools must therefore affect the right of the denominational bodies to the enjoyment of their property," Ventour found.

Even after that determination, Ventour found that the TSC regulations does not say that a person "shall not be appointed to hold an office of teacher in an assisted school if the board signifies its objection".

"If the intention was to vest such a power in the board, it would have stated so expressly in the rules," Ventour stated.

Ventour said even the Concodat had always been exercised subject to the approval of school boards.

—Renuka Singh