India, Aug. 3 -- Nearly a decade after Balchitravani, the State Institute of Educational Technology (SIET) that once brought educational programmes to children across Maharashtra through Doordarshan, would up, the Bombay High Court has closed the legal chapter for two of its former employees, ruling that they were not state government servants and therefore not entitled to pension benefits.

The ruling, delivered while dismissing petitions filed by Ravindra Bidkar and Ramdas Shendge, also revisited the journey of an institution that, long before the internet and search engines became household tools, served as an educational gateway for children, particularly in rural Maharashtra. Established in 1984 and formally shut down in 2017 after b...