MUMBAI, May 14 -- After finding that FIRs were being registered and teachers arrested despite earlier court orders to the contrary, the Bombay High Court has restrained Commissioner of Education Sachindra Pratap Singh from participating in the investigation being carried out by a Special Investigation Team (SIT) into appointments of teaching and non-teaching staff in schools across Maharashtra. "The Commissioner of Education is busy issuing directions for registration of FIRs when the SIT is exclusively constituted for this purpose. If the Commissioner himself wants to inquire and investigate as a single member SIT, we have every reason to even doubt the SIT," observed a division bench of Justice Ravindra Ghuge and Justice Hiten Venegaonkar. The judges expressed strong displeasure after noting a spurt in FIRs against teachers despite earlier restraining orders passed by the court. The bench noted that the education commissioner was continuing to direct registration of FIRs and, in one such case, an assistant teacher from Navi Mumbai was arrested by the Vashi police. "We had expected him to follow a natural course of investigation rather than issuing directions for registration of FIRs, which ex facie may not be within the ambit of his jurisdiction," the judges said. While clarifying that the SIT investigation, headed by a Divisional Commissioner of Education, would continue, the court restrained the education commissioner from participating in the probe and also prohibited the police machinery from taking part in the process. The court was hearing a batch of petitions filed by teachers who alleged that their salaries had been stopped without due process and that FIRs. htc...