Calcutta, Aug. 27: Calcutta High Court today said the Darjeeling Gorkha Hill Council had no legal right to appoint teachers in the state-aided schools in three hills subdivisions, directing the council to sack within a month at least 300 ad-hoc teachers it had recruited.

Handing down the ruling, Justice Barin Ghosh asked the School Service Commission (SSC) to appoint its empanelled teachers, ending a five-year-old impasse over appointment of the teachers who had got through the SSC examination.

The court passed the judgment in response to a petition filed by 68 candidates selected by the SSC, but denied appointment by the DGHC.

The ruling came two weeks after the government announced its decision to hand over the hill functioning of the SSC to the DGHC, headed by Subash Ghisingh of the Gorkha National Liberation Front.

Municipal affairs minister Asok Bhattacharya said in Darjeeling on August 10 that the government would soon enact a law in the Assembly to make the handover possible.

He said chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee had okayed the handover after Ghisingh agreed to appoint the teachers empanelled by the SSC.

Justice Ghosh said the DGHC and the state government could not make any agreement contrary to the state municipal law. He said the DGHC, too, had no right to compel the government-aided schools to act in contravention of the provisions laid down in the law.

The court also asked the government to stop providing aid immediately for the schools that had not followed the SSC rules while appointing the teachers on ad hoc basis.

Ekramul Bari, the lawyer for the petitioners, had told the court that DGHC had not allowed the SSC to appoint the empanelled teachers in the schools of Darjeeling, Kalimpong and Kurseong subdivisions.

“The council has made more than 300 ad-hoc appointments as assistant schoolteachers and the state is providing them with salaries,” he had said.

The lawyer had argued that the council was part of the state government, so the hill council could not refuse the SSC’s recommendations. He demanded that that the empanelled teachers be appointed without further delay. The lawyer for the DGHC, on the other hand, had argued that under an agreement with the state government, the council was the sole authority to appoint teachers in the state-aided schools in all three subdivisions in the hills.

After hearing both sides, Justice Ghosh held that the agreement between the government and the DGHC was contrary to the Municipal Act. He said it should be treated as “bad in law.”

Earlier, Justice Amitava Lala, admitting a similar petition, had also observed that the panel made by the SSC was justified and in accordance with law.

The controversy over the appointment of teachers in Darjeeling has been raging for a long time.

Things were complicated when SSC (hills) chairman G.S. Yonzone quit a couple of years ago. The post has not been filled yet.