Calcutta HC to hear primary teachers' termination appeals from May 7

KOLKATA: The Calcutta High Court on Monday said that it will hear from May 7 appeals by the West Bengal Board of Primary Education and others challenging the termination of around 32,000 jobs of primary school teachers. A single bench of Justice Abhijit Gangopadhyay had on May 12, 2023, ordered the cancellation of the appointment of around 32,000 candidates, who had not completed the teachers' training course when they were recruited as primary teachers through a selection process in 2016 on the basis of Teacher Eligibility Test (TET) of 2014.

The primary education board and others appealed against the single bench judgment. A division bench, comprising justices Tapabrata Chakraborty and Reetobroto Kumar Mitra, before which the matter was assigned by the chief justice of the high court, said that it will hear the appeals from May 7.

A section of teachers, who have been serving since February 2017, are also among the appellants in the matter, their lawyer Pratik Dhar submitted before the court.

Fresh selection of teachers

The single bench cancelled the service of 32,000 primary school teachers and had directed that a fresh selection process be initiated. A division bench stayed the termination of service of the teachers in an interim order. The matter, thereafter, went up to the Supreme Court, which sent it back to the high court for hearing of the appeals. The teachers are at present working in their respective schools, Dhar stated before the court. He claimed that some documents relied upon by the single bench in passing the order of annulment of service of 32,000 teachers were not revealed to the parties in the matter.

Appearing for another section of teachers who were recruited, senior lawyer Kalyan Banerjee claimed that the intention of the unsuccessful candidates, who had challenged the recruitment process before the single bench, was that the jobs of all those who were appointed be terminated.

He submitted before the division bench that if documents relied upon by the single bench in passing the order of annulment of service of 32,000 teachers were not revealed to the parties in the matter as claimed by Dhar, then the judgment of the single bench should be set aside on that score itself.

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Invalidation of teachers appointment

Advocate General Kishore Dutta, appearing for the primary school board, stated that the soft copy of the paper book in the matter will be supplied to any of the parties in the appeals on request. In a separate matter, the Supreme Court had, in a judgment on April 3, invalidated the appointment of 25,753 teachers and staffers in various West Bengal government-aided schools, terming the entire selection process "vitiated and tainted". Later, the apex court extended the services of terminated teachers found untainted by the CBI. The apex court, however, did not extend the services of grade ‘C’ and ‘D’ employees of these schools.