HC stays teacher recruitment

TNN | Jan 28, 2014,KOLKATA: Calcutta high court on Monday stayed recruitment of teachers from the common merit list prepared by the West Bengal School Service Commission (SSC) till February 14.

During the stay, SSC can't allow the 19,000-odd candidates, who have already got appointment letters, to join duty in state-sponsored secondary and higher secondary schools. Pushed to the wall, the government has adopted a wait-and-watch policy. "We are waiting for the final court verdict. We will chart out future course after that," said education minister Bratya Basu.

The court took exception to SSC's compiling a common merit list despite a specific court order in April 2013, to prepare two separate lists - one for trained teachers and the other for non-trained - in keeping with National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE) guidelines.

Justice Debashis Kar Gupta held that the court is satisfied, prima facie, that there is gross irregularity in the recruitment process. The court directed SSC to come with a satisfactory reply at the next hearing on February 6, failing which the court may scrap the entire panel.

Petitioners Ruma Das and 20 others submitted to the court that SSC did not comply with the court order of separate merit lists. Citing the SSC merit list published on the internet, lawyer Subrata Mukhopadhyay pointed out to the court on January 20 that it doesn't categorize trained and untrained candidates as the court directed. In response, the court directed SSC to file an affidavit in defence of the action. Justice Kar Gupta was visibly angry when lawyers Kamalesh Bhattacharya and Debaprasad Chatterjee, representing the state and SSC, ran short of words in the courtroom.

Justice Kar Gupta then directed the state and SSC to file affidavits stating what steps were taken in preparing the merit list in compliance with the court order on February 6 when the court takes up the matter for hearing.

Justice Kar Gupta observed that the court may cancel the entire panel if the SSC fails to come up with a satisfactory reply.