Bold claim: 32,000 primary school teachers could retain their jobs, as the Calcutta High Court pivots from a 2016 recruitment setback. A division bench has overturned a prior order that nullified the 32,000 appointments made through the Teachers' Eligibility Test (TET) process in West Bengal, ruling that no concrete evidence of irregularities was presented against the 2016 hires, according to a PTI report.
The bench, comprising Justices Tapabrata Chakraborty and Reetabrata Kumar Mitra, indicated reluctance to uphold the single-judge ruling since confirmable irregularities were not proven across all recruitments.
The court acknowledged that terminating these teachers after nine years would have a profound impact on them and their families.
Earlier, the CBI, directed by the High Court to probe the matter, had identified 264 appointments with irregularities, including the allocation of extra marks. The court noted that the investigation agency had not found evidence that the marks were awarded by outside entities.
Beyond the 264 flagged candidates, 96 additional teachers came under scrutiny, and their positions were reinstated after a Supreme Court order, the report states.
The court concluded that this evidence does not justify scrapping the entire selection process.
Reaction from the chief political figure: Mamata Banerjee welcomed the High Court’s reversal, calling it humanitarian relief for thousands of families. She told PTI that the court’s decision saves jobs and aligns with a broader aim to create employment, not eliminate it.
Previously, a petition filed by a group of candidates challenged the recruitment process on grounds of irregularities and sought a stay on the division bench’s decision. That stay was denied.
On May 12, 2023, Justice Abhijit Gangopadhyay of a single bench terminated the appointments of these 32,000 primary teachers, citing alleged fraud by the primary education board in the selection process and noncompliance with recruitment rules for state-run and aided primary schools. The single-judge order suggested the possibility that some teachers could have been hired without mandatory aptitude testing, a claim the division bench said the probe had not yet substantiated with solid evidence.
