Surmises, conjectures: Reasons for scrapping Ganguly order
Times of India | 5 December 2025
Kolkata: The Calcutta High Court division bench, which on Wednesday reinstated 32,000 primary school teachers' jobs, striking down seven findings by former judge Abhijit Ganguly, called Ganguly's statement of him smelling "stinking rats" in his May 2023 order "mere surmises and conjectures".
The Supreme Court had tasked the division bench of Justice Tapabrata Chakraborty and Justice Reetobroto Kumar Mitra to hear the appeal, filed by West Bengal Board of Primary Education, concerning single judge Ganguly's order in the TET 2014 recruitment process.
Ganguly had joined the BJP soon after resigning from the high court. About his finding that the primary education board and its officials conducted the affair "as a local club", the division bench said, "The court made sweeping observations that the board and its officials, including its former president, conducted the whole affair as that of a local club and jobs were sold to some candidates... , in the absence of appropriate pleadings. Even a point, ostensibly a point of law, is required to be substantiated by facts. The law casts a heavy burden on the persons alleging mala fides to prove it on the basis of facts. But such proposition of law was not considered, rendering the finding unacceptable and beyond the pale."
Ganguly's finding that there was no selection committee and that an outside agency was engaged was also found "not sustainable" as the division bench pointed out the "court itself found interviewers were engaged and 30 interviewers were summoned and questioned by court". It was pointed out that recruitment rules conferred authority towards the engagement of any specialised agency.
Another of Ganguly's findings, that no aptitude test was taken, was found contrary to the statements of those very candidates, who had challenged the 2014 TET process. They had said they were called for an interview. The division bench noted this point was even recorded in his judgment.
Former judge Ganguly found the aptitude test scores were wholly illegal and a false exercise "to hoodwink all concerned, including the court". But, the division bench said, this finding was arrived at on the "basis of a perception that the marks in aptitude and in academics should be proportional". The division bench said, "Mere suspicion cannot be a substitute for proof, and the writ court ought not interfere with selections by expert bodies..."
In reply to another finding, the division bench said CBI and ED probe could not be the basis for the cancellation of the recruitment process, especially when in the petition, no appointment of any of the 32,000 candidates could be cited as biased or illegal. "Proof beyond reasonable doubt cannot be stretched morbidly to embrace every hunch and hesitancy," the division bench said on the single judge finding that the petitioners' allegations came to light with the CBI and ED probe.
The May 2023 judgment said there was neither a formal engagement letter nor guidelines for marking the aptitude test. "The finding was arrived at, oblivious that the board did produce the letters issued to interviewers that were perused by the court on Feb 6, 2023, and some interviewers were examined by court," the division bench said.