A division bench at the Jalpaiguri Circuit Bench of Calcutta High Court on Tuesday heard a petition against the cancellation of jobs of 313 primary teachers working under the Gorkhaland Territorial Administration (GTA) in the hills.

The jobs of these teachers were recently terminated following an order by Justice Biswajit Basu of Calcutta High Court. Challenging this decision, the affected teachers had filed an appeal before the division bench of the Jalpaiguri Circuit Bench, seeking a stay on the single bench order.

On Tuesday, the matter was heard by the division bench comprising Justice Tapabrata Chakraborty and Justice Biswaroop Chowdhury. After hearing arguments from all parties, the bench reserved its judgment, which will be pronounced on Wednesday.

Over the years, "voluntary teachers" had been recruited in hill schools, allegedly without proper procedure.

In 2019, the state government regularised the jobs of several hundreds of such voluntary teachers.

As a result, many sidelined "genuine" candidates moved court.

Earlier this month, Justice Biswajit Basu set aside the appointments and cancelled the jobs of the 313 teachers.

During Tuesday's hearing, Piyush Biswas, the counsel for the petitioning teachers, said that they had sought a stay on the single bench order.

“The judges heard all sides in detail. The verdict will be delivered on Wednesday,” he said.

The advocate general and the additional advocate general represented the state during the hearing.

Joyjit Choudhury, the additional advocate general, informed the court that in 2019, the state cabinet had approved the regularisation of 427 teachers, but the 313 teachers in question were not included in that list.

He said that the state cabinet had never taken any fresh decision to appoint or regularise these 313 voluntary primary teachers.

“We are eagerly waiting for the division bench’s verdict to see whether it upholds the single bench order cancelling the appointments or grants a stay on the ruling,” said one of the teachers.