The Calcutta High Court is set to commence hearings on May 7 concerning the termination of approximately 32,000 primary school teachers’ jobs, as announced on Monday. This case involves appeals from the West Bengal Board of Primary Education and various other parties against the decision made by a single bench of the court in 2023.
Justice Abhijit Gangopadhyay, presiding over the single bench on May 12, 2023, ruled to cancel the appointments of these teachers, who were recruited in 2016 through a selection process based on the Teacher Eligibility Test (TET) of 2014, despite not having completed the mandatory teachers’ training course.
The primary education board, among other appellants, challenged this decision, which led to the case being escalated to a division bench comprising Justices Tapabrata Chakraborty and Reetobroto Kumar Mitra. This bench was specifically designated by the chief justice of the high court to address the appeals.
During the legal proceedings, Pratik Dhar, representing a segment of the affected teachers, stated that the individuals had been actively serving since their initial appointment in February 2017 and should not be dismissed without just cause. He also highlighted that crucial documents used by the single bench to annul the 32,000 appointments were allegedly not disclosed to all parties involved.
Senior lawyer Kalyan Banerjee, advocating for another group of recruited teachers, argued that the motives behind the original challenges to the recruitment process were solely to terminate all newly appointed teachers. He stressed that if the said documents were indeed withheld, then the judgment by the single bench should be nullified on those grounds alone.
Advocate General Kishore Dutta assured that a soft copy of the paper book concerning the case would be made available to any party upon request, ensuring transparency moving forward.
This case follows a separate but related Supreme Court judgment on April 3, which invalidated the appointment of 25,753 teachers and staff across various West Bengal government-aided schools, citing a “vitiated and tainted” selection process. However, the apex court permitted extended services for those teachers cleared by the CBI, excluding grade ‘C’ and ‘D’ employees from this relief.
