32k teachers keep jobs as HC bench overturns ex-judge Ganguly’s verdict
Times of India | 4 December 2025
Kolkata: A Calcutta High Court division bench on Wednesday decided against scrapping the recruitment of 32,000 teachers for state-run primary schools, setting aside an order of HC judge-turned-BJP MP Abhijit Ganguly.
Justice Ganguly had in 2023 cancelled the appointments, which were based on the 2014 Teacher Eligibility Test (TET), on the grounds that the jobs were "actually sold". A higher bench granted a stay on the order.
The bench of justices Tapabrata Chakraborty and Reetobroto Mitra, acting on an appeal by the state govt against the single-judge bench's order, ruled on Wednesday, "The allegation of fraud and corruption pertaining to the entire recruitment process is not sustainable and the appointment of the 32,000 teachers cannot be interfered with."
The bench said it was setting aside Justice Ganguly's order because the "conclusion arrived at by the investigating authority (CBI) would not reveal that the appointed candidates were involved in any corrupt practices".
Cautioning courts against "innovating at pleasure", the bench observed, "Neither can they don the helmet of a ‘knight-errant' roaming at will in pursuit of his own ideal of beauty or of goodness."
Referring to Justice Ganguly's statement that "stinking rats are being smelt" in the recruitment process, the bench said, "There must have been a possibility of systemic malice, assessment of data doesn't point to the same."
The division bench noted that the investigation by CBI only found irregularities in the recruitment of 360 candidates. Of them, 264 candidates were given grace marks. Additionally, 96 candidates did not secure qualifying marks but were still appointed. Their services were terminated but they are still teaching following a Supreme Court order.
The HC division bench indicted the single-judge bench for arriving at the conclusions that no aptitude test had been conducted for the candidates, an outside agency had been contracted to carry out the process and officials at West Bengal Primary Education Board had sold jobs.
"A court is not expected to indulge in roving enquiry to rule out all possible explanations and alternative scenarios justifying such irregularities. There is a difference between a proven case of mass cheating in a Board examination and unproven imputed charge of corruption. When the services are terminated on the ground that the incumbent aided and abetted corruption, the court must satisfy itself that condition for this exists," the bench held.
The division bench kept in mind the suffering the teachers would have gone through if they were to lose their jobs after being in service for close to nine years.
"The effect of any direction for re-examination at this stage would have a dissimilar impact upon the appointees. Any such direction for re-examination would fail to secure fair play in action. A job taken away after about nine years of service would indisputably cause insurmountable inconvenience to the appellants and their survival would be at stake," the bench held.
It said "a group of unsuccessful candidates should not be allowed to damage the entire system and more so when it cannot be ruled out that innocent teachers would also suffer great ignominy and stigma. The service of the appointees cannot also be terminated only on the basis of an ongoing criminal proceeding."
Lawyer Tarunjyoti Tiwari, who represented the original petitioners, prayed for a stay on the operation of the order. The bench rejected the prayer.