Calcutta HC directs former Bengal primary education board president to submit list of assets

Kolkata: Calcutta High Court, which is hearing the case of illegalities in the appointment of teachers in government and government schools in the state, Tuesday directed former West Bengal Primary Education Board president Manik Bhattacharya to submit a list of his assets and that of his family members before it.

Justice Abhijit Gangopadhyay directed Bhattacharya, who is also an MLA of the ruling Trinamool Congress, to submit before the court the list of properties in the form of an affidavit by the next date of hearing on July 5.

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Bhattacharya in his deposition said that he has his wife, son and daughter and gave an account of his assets that include residential properties in Kolkata and paternal property in his native village in Nadia district. He also said that he was the principal of Jogesh Chandra Chowdhury College in the city till 2014 before he was appointed president of the state primary education board.

Bhattacharya was elected to the assembly from Palashipara constituency in Nadia district in the 2021 elections on a TMC ticket. Justice Gangopadhyay had on Monday ordered the removal of Manik Bhattacharya from the post of president of the West Bengal Board of Primary Education forthwith holding him responsible for illegalities committed in the appointment of at least 269 teachers in primary schools sponsored or aided by the state government.

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The primary education board on Tuesday preferred an appeal before a division bench of the high court challenging the single bench order directing a CBI probe into alleged illegalities in appointments of teachers as per a panel from Teachers' Eligibility Test (TET), 2014.

A special investigation team of CBI was constituted on an order of the HC to probe the alleged illegal appointments. Justice Gangopadhay has directed that the SIT will also investigate all the cases related to irregularities in recruitment of teaching and non-teaching staff in secondary schools in which CBI probes were earlier ordered by the court.