Primary Teacher recruit (TET) petition in court

TT, Calcutta, Feb. 7: Over 150 candidates who qualified the Teachers' Eligibility Test and received the primary teachers' training moved Calcutta High Court today challenging the process adopted by the government in filling up 40,000 vacancies.

Justice Arijit Banerjee admitted the petition, filed by the candidates from seven south Bengal districts, and fixed the matter for hearing on February 9.

The petitioners alleged that the West Bengal Board of Primary Education had violated an earlier high court directive saying that the vacant posts of primary teachers would have to be filled with trained and TET-qualified candidates first, and if there are vacancies still, they could be filled up by TET-qualified untrained candidates.

Prasenjit Bose of East Midnapore and 152 candidates from six other districts said in the petition they were not selected for the teachers' post despite qualifying the TET and having training certificates.

"But candidates who might have succeeded in TET but did not have PTTI certificates have been selected for the posts of primary teachers," a petitioner claimed.

The primary education board had on January 31 published a list of 12,000 candidates who cracked the TET.

Board president Manik Bhattacharya had said: "The board has published the names of some of the successful candidates. The names of the rest of the successful candidates would be announced later."

On September 15, Justice C.S. Karnan had delivered a verdict asking the primary education board to give priority to TET qualified and trained candidates during the recruitment of primary teachers.

Justice Karnan had, however, allowed the board to fill up the remaining posts with the TET qualified untrained candidates.

As both the advocate general and the additional advocate general had submitted before the court that the order would be followed, the judge had permitted the board to announce the result.