The Calcutta High Court on Wednesday quashed the recruitment of 313 school teachers in the Gorkhaland Territorial Administration (GTA), terming their appointment “illegal”.

Stating that the West Bengal School Education Department failed to justify the recruitment process and the approvals given could not withstand judicial scrutiny, the single-judge Bench of Justice Biswajit Basu directed the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) of West Bengal Police to continue its investigation into alleged irregularities in the recruitment.

In March 2019, the then Principal Secretary of the School Education Department of the West Bengal government, through a letter, regularised the jobs of 313 voluntary teachers in secondary and higher secondary schools under the GTA in Darjeeling and Kalimpong districts.

In 2023, a writ petition was filed in the High Court, challenging the legitimacy of the appointment and alleging large-scale corruption. The petitioners alleged that the jobs of 313 teachers were regularised without a formal recruitment process, in violation of the established norms and directives.

A year later, the Division Bench of Justice Harish Tandon and Justice Madhuresh Prasad had upheld the order for a CBI inquiry into the recruitment process. It was, however, stayed by the Supreme Court.

While hearing the petition earlier, the single bench of Justice Biswajit Basu had raised questions on the educational qualifications of the appointed teachers, saying that several of them lacked the mandatory BEd qualification.

The appointments were made despite a 2010 directive prohibiting the appointment of volunteer teachers without written approval from the State School Education Department.

During the hearing, the GTA had argued that it was not possible to conduct a “regular” teacher recruitment process in 2019, citing the “political situation” in the Hills.

The High Court, however, rejected the claims, noting that schools in the region were under the state government as per the GTA Act, and during the same period, appointments in other sectors were made in a regular way.

In April this year, the High Court had ordered the suspension of the salaries of the 313 teachers.

In April this year, the Supreme Court had cancelled the appointment of nearly 26,000 teachers and school staff recruited by the state School Service Commission in 2016, calling the selection process “vitiated by manipulation and fraud”.

However, in the case of appointment of primary teachers in 2014, a Division Bench of the Calcutta High Court ordered the retention of 32,000 teachers, saying the material on record did not justify the mass termination.