Judge refuses primary teacher case: Hearing on cancelling of 36,000 appointments
Telegraph | 10 April 2025
The senior judge on a Calcutta High Court division bench on Monday refused to hear the state’s appeal against an order by Justice Abhijit Gangopadhyay in May 2023, cancelling the appointments of over 36,000 primary school teachers based on the 2014 Teachers’ Eligibility Test.
The process of appointing the teachers started in 2016.
Justice Soumen Sen refused to hear the appeal on “personal grounds” and sent the matter to Chief Justice T.S. Sivagnanam so the case could be assigned to another bench.
The other judge on the bench was Justice Ajay Kumar Mukhopadhyay.
The judge’s refusal comes at a time when the Supreme Court has upheld a high court order and scrapped the appointments of 25,753 teaching and non-teaching staff recruited through the West Bengal School Service Commission based on a 2016 selection test. The state’s role is mired in controversy in connection with that case.
In 2014, the West Bengal Primary Education Board issued the notification for the Teachers’ Eligibility Test to appoint teachers in 43,000 vacant posts in state-aided primary schools.
Around 25 lakh candidates took the test. In 2016, based on the 2014 TET, appointments were given to 42,954 candidates.
In 2023, Priyanka Naskar and 140 other candidates alleged they were not given appointments despite clearing the TET.
They moved the court of Justice Gangopadhyay, claiming that the appointments of nearly 36,000 candidates were illegal because they were appointed despite scoring less.
It was alleged that the primary education board had not conducted any aptitude test while recruiting these candidates.
TET-qualified candidates have to appear in an interview and an aptitude test to make it to the merit list.
Justice Gangopadhyay summoned some of the candidates among the 36,000 and conducted their aptitude tests. The test failed to satisfy the judge.
In May 2023, Justice Gangopadhyay cancelled the appointments of over 36,000 teachers in government-aided primary schools.
The order said teachers who lost their jobs would be asked to continue for four months, when they would get salaries on a par with para-teachers (who help regular teachers in running schools).
Days later, a high court division bench ordered an interim stay on Justice Gangopadhyay’s order.
Based on the interim stay, the teachers were not treated like para-teachers and drew salaries like regular teachers.
A separate case was moved before Justice Amrita Sinha to scrap the panel of the 2014 primary TET. Justice Sinha ordered the board to publish the merit list of all 42,954 primary teachers who were appointed.
The state moved a special leave petition in the Supreme Court against this order. The petition is still pending before the apex court.