To the great joy of 32,000 primary school teachers in West Bengal, a division bench of the Calcutta High Court has restored their jobs. A judgment in 2023 by the former judge of the high court, Abhijit Gangopadhyay, who is now the Bharatiya Janata Party member of Parliament from Tamluk, had ordered their sacking. The judge had found manipulation in the recruitment process and a lack of mandatory training of teachers required by the Teachers’ Eligibility Test, which the teachers had sat for in 2015. The division bench, however, said that it did not find evidence of systemic cheating through assessment of the data. The 264 candidates who had been given grace marks had been identified, as were the 96 candidates who had not got qualifying marks but were yet appointed. This identification showed that the allegations of fraud and corruption of the entire process were not sustainable. The division bench upheld the importance of keeping the system in place by saying that a few unsuccessful individuals could not be allowed to upset it. The judgment was also compassionate. It referred to about the nine years of service by the 32,000 teachers in which they had been no complaints of inefficiency against them; a sacking at this point, the division bench felt, would become a matter of survival for the teachers and their families.

The teachers expressed their happiness at the restoration of not just jobs but of dignity too. At the same time, the allegations of corruption, even against a few, should not be forgotten. The system needs close scrutiny so that any possibility of corruption can be rooted out. There should be no loophole for allegations. For the present, the judgment has had a positive impact on the state government. In the first place, the division bench of the high court did not find evidence of systemic corruption. That is a great relief for the government in spite of, as the education minister, Bratya Basu, pointed out, the allegations levelled by agencies such as the Central Bureau of Investigation. The chief minister expressed her gladness too, saying that jobs should be given, not taken away. The timing of the judgment is extremely favourable as the West Bengal assembly elections are imminent. The loss of 32,000 jobs could have certainly had a multi-level impact on the poll pitch.