‘Guru Brahma, Guru Vishnu’ has no value if teachers underpaid: SC

The Supreme Court has criticised the Gujarat government for paying contractual assistant professors a monthly salary of ₹30,000, far below the ₹1.2-1.4 lakh earned by their ad hoc and regular counterparts, despite performing similar work, The Times of India has reported.

A bench of Justices P S Narasimha and Joymalya Bagchi said, “We have a serious concern about the way we treat our teachers who educate our future generations, enable them to acquire the necessary qualifications and expertise.”

The court said chanting verses like “guru brahma, guru vishnu, guru devo maheswarah” has little meaning if those shaping future generations are not paid fairly.


“Academicians, lecturers and professors are the intellectual backbone of any nation, as they dedicate their lives to shaping the minds and character of future generations. Their work goes far beyond delivering lessons – it involves mentoring, guiding research, nurturing critical thinking, and instilling values that contribute to the progress of society,” TOI quoted the bench as saying.

Dismissing the state’s appeal against a Gujarat High Court ruling that directed pay parity under the “equal work, equal pay” principle, the bench said, “More than the justifiable claim for parity, it is rather disturbing to see how lecturers, holding the post of assistant professors, continue to be paid and subsist on such low salaries for almost two decades.”

The court noted that only 923 of 2,720 sanctioned posts of assistant professors in state engineering colleges were filled through regular appointments, while 158 were on ad hoc terms and 902 were contractual. The remaining 737 posts remained vacant, and the gap widened with the sanctioning of 525 new assistant professor and 347 lecturer posts.

The bench warned that poor treatment of educators undermines the value a country places on knowledge.

“When educators are not treated with dignity or offered respectable emoluments, it diminishes the value a country places on knowledge and undermines the motivation of those entrusted with building its intellectual capital,” the court observed.

It added that ensuring fair pay and dignity for teachers was essential to secure quality education, innovation and a brighter future for India’s youth.

(With inputs from TOI)