Justice Biswajit Basu of Calcutta High Court on Wednesday released from his court the case relating to the illegal appointment of teachers in schools in the three subdivisions of the hills.
Justice Basu decided to release the matter after the state’s advocate-general Kishore Datta claimed that the former’s court had no jurisdiction to hear the case.
“Calcutta High Court’s Circuit Bench (in Jalpaiguri) should hear the case,” said Datta.
Following his remark, Justice Basu said since the advocate-general claimed this court should not hear the case, he was releasing it.
He sent the case to the Chief Justice for further action.
Senior counsel Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharyya, who appeared for the petitioner candidates, however, argued that since the Supreme Court had sent back the matter to the Calcutta High Court, Justice Basu had every right to hear the same.
But Justice Basu remained strict on his decision.
It has been alleged that like the schools in the plains, a deep-rooted scam took place in the hills since 2014 during the appointment of teachers in schools under the jurisdiction of the Gorkhaland Territorial Administration (GTA).
Following the complaint, Calcutta High Court initiated a prosecution. However, the issue went to the Supreme Court after the petitioners, who claimed they were deprived of their jobs due to the alleged scam, raised the issue of engaging the DIG (operations) of the CID to probe the issue. The petitioners claimed that this police officer failed to issue a notice to those accused in the case.
Among the accused are former state education minister Partha Chatterjee, TMC leader Trinankur Bhattacharyya, hill leader Binay Tamang and an official of the school education department in Darjeeling.
But the apex court of the country had sent back the case to Calcutta High Court for disposal. In due course, Chief Justice T.S. Sivagnanam had assigned Justice Basu to hear the case.
Now that Justice Basu has sent it back, the Chief Justice will assign the matter for disposal by another bench, either in Calcutta High Court or at its Circuit Bench in Jalpaiguri, said a senior high court official.
Saradha case
A division bench headed by Justice Joymalya Bagchi of Calcutta High Court on Thursday asked the state home department to inform by four weeks how many cases against Sudipta Sen, then director of the Saradha Group, were still pending, along with the status of such cases.
The order followed Sen’s petition, seeking to know the status of pending cases against him. He was arrested in 2013 and is behind bars.