Justice Biswajit Basu of Calcutta High Court on Friday asked the school education department to file an affidavit stating what prompted the state cabinet to create supernumerary posts for physical education and work education teachers.
The department will have to file the affidavit on May 6, the next date of the hearing.
Justice Basu issued the order while dealing with a petition challenging the legality of the government decision.
The high court gave the directive days after the school service commission recommended the appointments of 1,240 candidates as physical education and work education teachers in supernumerary posts in government-aided schools.
The commission’s recommendation came a day after the Supreme Court set aside a directive by a division bench of the high court for a CBI inquiry into the Bengal government’s decision to create supernumerary posts for 6,861 teaching and non-teaching staff in 2022.
A Calcutta High Court lawyer with expertise in education-related laws said: “Creating supernumerary posts is a policy decision taken by the government. An investigating agency has no right to conduct a probe into a government decision, a point affirmed by the Supreme Court on April 9. But someone can challenge the legality of the decision.”
An official of the department told Metro: “It was not that any illegality prompted the state government to create the supernumerary posts for physical education and work education teachers.”
“Many waitlisted candidates said they wouldn’t get a chance to be recruited as their age limit would expire by the time the next recruitment phase arrived. Hence, the state government created extra posts so they could be absorbed,” the official said.
The age limit for general category candidates for this post is 37 years.
These candidates, who took the written test in 2017, were counselled in November 2022 by the commission.
Their names could not be recommended as a case had been filed in Calcutta High Court challenging the aim of creating the supernumerary posts.