Calcutta HC upholds order on termination of jobs of secondary teachers

Kolkata: A division bench of the Calcutta High Court on Wednesday upheld an earlier order regarding the termination of jobs of 805 secondary teachers recruited illegally in different state-run schools in West Bengal.

Tthe Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) had submitted to the court’s single-judge bench of Justice Abhijit Gangopadhyay, the optical mark recognition (OMR) sheets of the written examination of 952 candidates, who were subsequently recruited as secondary teachers.

The central agency sleuths also informed the bench , which was hearing the matter at that point of time, that these OMR sheets were tampered with.

The matter was then transferred to another single-judge bench of Justice Biswajit Basu.

During the course of hearing at Justice Basu’s bench, the West Bengal School Service Commission (WBSSC) also informed the court it also feels that the OMR sheets of 805 out of 952 candidates were tampered with to accommodate them in recruitment as secondary teachers.

Accordingly, Justice Basu ordered immediate termination of the services of these 805 teachers.

WBSSC also started the process and by now has already completed the process of termination of jobs of 618 out of these 805 secondary teachers.

Meanwhile, the 805 teachers approached the Calcutta High Court’s division bench of Justices Subrata Talukdar and Supratim Bhattacharya challenging the order of the single-judge bench of Justice Basu.

On Wednesday, that division bench ultimately pronounced its verdict upholding the single-bench verdict and refusing to give any stay on that.

The division bench gave full authority to WBSSC to make a decision on this count.

“There cannot be a straight- jacket formula in case of natural justice. The commission will ultimately decide on this count. Every institution has the right to implement its own set of rules,” Justice Talukdar observed.

IANS