Justice Biswajit Basu of Calcutta High Court on Thursday held that the state government and the West Bengal School Service Commission had different stands on the recruitment of teachers for classes IX to XII in government-aided schools.
Justice Basu said: “In its notification dated May 19, the state government had announced that after cancelling the appointments of the illegally recruited teachers, the vacant posts would be filled by recruiting deprived candidates. But the commission on Wednesday informed the bench of Justice Abhijit Gangopadhyay of the same court that considering the trouble of families of the teachers who have allegedly been appointed illegally, the commission has decided not to terminate their services.”
“Those candidates can be absorbed in other jobs,” the judge said, quoting the commission’s stand.
The state has to clear its stand through an affidavit on Friday, Justice Basu said.
The judge was hearing a petition by a candidate who claimed to have been denied a job.
“Why is the state government not removing the present SSC when it is not ready to accept the state’s decision to appoint deprived candidates in the 6,000-odd vacant post of teachers in classes IX to XII?” the judge asked.
Justice Basu directed the state education department to file an affidavit by Friday stating clearly its stand on filling vacant posts of teachers in government-aided schools.
Earlier, in an affidavit in Justice Gangopadhyay’s court, the state had cited two options in regard to appointment of teachers in vacant posts for classes IX to XII.
The first is to terminate the services of those appointed illegally and fill the vacant posts with candidates who were unfairly denied jobs. The second option is to create new posts for the deprived candidates.
“The affidavit will come up for hearing in Justice Gangopadhyay’s court on November 22. The court is likely to pass its order in this regard. Counsel for the state failed to inform it to Justice Basu today (Thursday),” a spokesman for the SSC said. The spokesman said that on Wednesday, the SSC’s statement was during the hearing of a case that was not related to any school hiring case.
Train service
Several trains have been cancelled for the “upcoming foggy season”.
Some of the trains cancelled from Kolkata are:
22197 Kolkata (Chitpore) Jhansi Superfast Express between December 4 and February 26.
12357 Kolkata-Amritsar Express between December 3 and February 28.
12317 Kolkata-Amritsar Express between December 4 and February 26.
12369 Howrah-Dehradun Superfast Express between December 1 and February 27.
