Calcutta HC upholds dismissal of 59 primary teachers

The Calcutta High Court on Thursday upheld the dismissal from service of 59 primary teachers in West Bengal government-sponsored and aided schools for having obtained appointment through illegal means, taking the total of such persons who lost their jobs to 252.

Justice Abhijit Gangopadhyay had ordered the removal from service of a total of 269 primary teachers in an earlier order and these 59 people were among them.

On a prayer by some of the persons who lost their jobs, the Supreme Court had directed that these 269 persons be given an opportunity to be heard by the high court.

Dissatisfied with their submissions filed through affidavits, Justice Gangopadhyay on Thursday upheld the dismissal of 59 persons who were working as primary school teachers.

Out of the 269 persons, the high court has already upheld the removal from service of 192 such primary school teachers after perusing their submissions, filed through affidavits, as per the apex court direction.

Of them, dismissal of 53 from service was upheld on a December 23 order and the loss of job of another 140 was confirmed on an order of January 4.

Noting severe irregularities in appointments of teachers by the West Bengal Board of Primary Education on petitions by candidates who claimed to have been denied jobs despite having qualified the Teachers' Eligibility Test (TET) in 2014, Justice Gangopadhyay had ordered a CBI investigation in the matter.

He had also ordered termination of jobs of 269 primary teachers who were found to have got the jobs through manipulation of marks and ranks in the results of the TET.

The petitioners before the single bench had alleged that although they appeared for TET-2014, no list containing the marks of candidates and indicating their respective merit positions was ever published, and that an additional panel of 273 candidates was prepared illegally, who were granted one additional mark, out of over 20 lakh candidates who appeared for the TET.

It was claimed that by dint of this one additional mark, 269 candidates out of the 273 got qualified for the job of teachers and subsequently got appointments.