Calcutta High Court on Friday directed the state education department to allow a Calcutta-based teacher in a Sagar school to interchange jobs with a teacher from the island working in a city school.

Many school teachers across the state want to effect such mutual transfers but have been denied permission by the department. They are likely to use the judgment as a precedent.

Debasish Paria, a resident of Purusatyampur on Sagar Island, has to commute to Shaktigarh High School in Jadavpur to take classes. He found out that Chanchal Kumar Maity commutes to Rudranagar Debendra Singh Vidyapith on the island from his house in south Calcutta and requested him to exchange jobs with him.

Maity agreed but the school education department turned down their request. Paria moved the high court. On October 9, 2004, Justice Asim Banerjee directed the government to approve the mutual transfers.

The state moved an appeal before the division bench of the court. The bench comprising Justice Prabir Kumar Samanta and Justice Arun Kumar Roy dismissed the appeal on April 20, 2006.

The education department then moved a special leave petition (SLP) before the Supreme Court to challenge the division bench’s order. The apex court on July 10, 2007, dismissed the SLP and upheld the earlier judgment.

“Even after the Supreme Court order, the department did not approve our mutual transfers. When I enquired why the order was not being carried out, the department officials said Maity had been transferred to another school,” said Paria.

“I tracked down a New Alipore resident named Etha Koley who was teaching in Kalyan Sangha Vidyaniketan on Sagar. She is a homemaker with a 12-year-old daughter and 70-year-old mother-in-law. Her husband is posted in Behrampore,” added Pariya.

He and Koley wrote to the department seeking mutual transfers, but the plea was turned down on March 4. Pariya again moved the high court. Justice S. Pal directed the government to allow the transfer within eight weeks.