Calcutta HC rejects govt's plea to dismiss PIL on primary teachers' recruitment

Kolkata, July 12 A division bench of the Calcutta High Court on Tuesday rejected a plea moved by the West Bengal government to dismiss a public interest litigation (PIL) alleging irregularities in the recruitment of primary teachers against financial consideration involving ministers of the state government and leaders of the ruling Trinamool Congress.

A person named Tapan Ghosh had filed the PIL with the division bench of Chief Justice Prakash Srivastava and Justice Rajarshi Bharadwaj, claiming that a number of ministers in the state Cabinet and leaders of the ruling Trinamool Congress recommended jobs in their letterheads to ineligible people.

Submitting some such recommendation letters to the court as supporting documents, the petitioner alleged that the recommendations were made against financial considerations.

The state government's counsel opposed the admission of the PIL and argued that since the case was related to primary teachers' recruitment way back in 2014, it was too late to entertain the PIL.

However, on Tuesday, the division bench dismissed the petition of the state government and admitted the PIL filed by Ghosh. The bench also asked both the petitioner and the state government to file their arguments in the form of affidavits within four weeks. The next hearing on the matter is scheduled on August 16.

A single-judge bench of Justice Abhijit Gangopadhyay has already ordered a CBI probe into the alleged irregularities in primary teachers' recruitment.

The bench also removed the President of the West Bengal Board of Primary Education, Manik Bhattacharya, from his chair. The CBI sleuths have already questioned Bhattacharya and the board secretary, Ratna Bagchi Chakraborty, in this connection.

Bhattacharya is also a Trinamool MLA who got elected from the Palashipara Assembly constituency in Nadia district in 2021.

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