The high court division bench of Justice Subrata Talukdar and Justice Lapita Banerji on Friday upheld an order by Justice Abhijit Gangopadhyay of the court asking the CBI to probe the recruitment of teachers by the primary education board.
The division bench also announced that all directives by Justice Gangopadhyay on the matter would prevail.
While issuing the probe order, Justice Gangopadhyay had directed the state to remove Manik Bhattacharya from the post of chairman of the primary education board and terminate the services of 269 candidates who allegedly got teaching jobs in government-aided primary schools in violation of rules.
Justice Gangopadhyay had said the court would monitor the investigation by the CBI and the agency was asked to place its reports in the court.
The CBI’s job was to find out whether there was any money transaction during the recruitment process undertaken by the board. During the hearing of the case before the single-judge bench, the petitioner had alleged that the 269 candidates, out of around 23 lakh who had written the teachers’ eligibility test (TET) in 2014, were given an additional 1 mark for attempting an erroneous question.
He had submitted that a second panel containing the names of these 269 candidates was published in 2017.
Maintaining that the second panel was illegal, Justice Gangopadhyay had declared as void the appointment of the 269 candidates.
The state and primary education board had appeals against Justice Gangopadhyay’s order. Bhattacharya, too, had appealed against the order removing him from the post of chairman of the board.
