Saving Teachers’ Jobs

 

 

JUSTICE Tapabrata Chakraborty and Justice Ritobroto Kumar Mitra of the Calcutta High Court at Kolkata, have, while delivering judgement of the bunch of cases including The West Bengal Board of Primary Education and another v. Priyanka Naskar and others, on December 3, 2025, observed that “A job taken away after about nine years of service would indisputably cause insurmountable inconvenience to the appellants and their survival along with their family members would be at stake.

 

“In such circumstances and considering the enormity of the impact, we are not inclined to uphold the cancellation of appointment of the 32,000 teachers, who have worked in the past for a long period.” In the judgement which was delivered by a Single Judge on May 12, 2023 in a writ petition, cancelling the appointment of 32,000 candidates, who were untrained at the time of selection, in the recruitment process conducted by the petitioner-Board and directing the Board to immediately arrange a recruitment exercise for candidates who were untrained at the time of recruitment (including candidates who have obtained training qualification in the meantime) within a period of three months from the date only for the candidates, who participated in 2016 recruitment process, in terms of the same Rules and legal procedures under which the 2016 Recruitment Process was conducted.

 

The Court had further directed that the primary teachers who are now employed shall be allowed to work for a period of four months at the remuneration equal to a para teacher of primary school and that if any of such teachers are recommended again by the Board in the recruitment exercise as directed, those candidates shall work in the schools where they are now working and shall get notional benefit of their seniority with no monetary benefit at all and their salary for the said period of four months shall not be given to them. It was further directed that the services of the currently employed, candidates, who would not succeed in the fresh selection, shall be terminated. The said directions were issued in the writ petition filed in the month of September, 2022 by 140 unsuccessful participants in the said recruitment process without impleading the teachers who were appointed about five years prior to filing of the writ petition.

 

Challenging the said judgment, the Board filed an appeal being MAT873/2023 and the same was initially heard with 4 appeals registered after allowing applications filed by set of candidates, whose appointment had been cancelled by the impugned judgement seeking leave to file appeal together with applications for addition of parties. In the said appeals an order was passed on May 19, 2023 directing that there shall be an interim stay on termination of jobs till the end of September 2023 and the Board was directed to conduct the said exercise, as directed by the Court within a period of three months. By the said order the application for addition of parties were also allowed. Aggrieved by the said order of May 19, 2023, the appointed candidates filed SLPs which were disposed of by the Supreme Court on July 7, 2023, setting aside the impugned interim order to the extent of the issuance of direction to conduct the selection afresh and directing the High Courts to decide the appeals and any other case(if any) filed by the aggrieved persons assailing the order of the , Court as expeditiously as possible.

 

According to the HC, the present case involves cancellation of appointment of 32,000 primary teachers, who have rendered uninterrupted service till date in different primary schools all over the State. There was no accusation of any offence or wrongdoing against any individual teacher, however, it was alleged that the Board committed Fraud and the recruitment process was not conducted as per the West Bengal Primary School Teachers Recruitment Rules, 2016 (RR, 2016). The High Court has pointed out that the recruitment process was conducted in two phases. As such the proposition of law that appointments made in contravention of statutory provisions are void ab initio is not applicable and the judgments delivered in cases of Adanthaya-(1994) 4 SCC 164 and State of Odisha and others v. Sulekh Chandra Pradhan and others –(2022)7 SCC 482 are not applicable to facts of this case.

 

All the untrained teachers, who participated in the recruitment process were erroneously construed to be a composite class and alleging that there had been a widespread corruption, the appointment of 32,000 teachers was cancelled. It is true that the Courts should emphasise the need for fairness, transparency, accountability in public service and shall support wholesale cancellation of examination if systemic irregularities undermine the process integrity. These irregularities refer to widespread flaws or malpractices within a system, process or organisation. It includes cheating and impersonation. Large scale irregularities including those which have the effect of denying equal access to similarly circumstanced candidates are suggestive of malaise eroding credibility of process. However, the Court is not expected to indulge in roving inquiry to rule out all possible explanations and alternate scenarios justifying such irregularities. There is difference between a proven case of mass cheating in a Board examination and unproven imputed charge of corruption. When the services are terminated on the ground that the incumbent aided and abetted corruption, the Court must satisfy itself that condition for this exists.

 

While deciding the issue urged, the Court went beyond the pleadings and cancelled the appointments made upon a purported finding that no aptitude test was held. Striking a note of caution, the HC has stated that a group of unsuccessful candidates should not be allowed to damage the entire system and more so when it cannot be ruled out that innocent teachers would also suffer great ignominy and stigma. The services of the appointees cannot be terminated only on the basis of an ongoing criminal proceeding. Additionally, 96 candidates who did not secure qualifying marks were appointed and they were also identified subsequently, these candidates were terminated subsequently, but they are still continuing in service on the strength of an order passed by the Supreme Court. In view of such identification, the allegation of fraud and corruption pertaining to the entire recruitment process, is not sustainable and the appointment of 32,000 teachers cannot be interfered with. For the reasons discussed herein, the Calcutta High Court has set aside the impugned judgement passed in the writ petition on May 12, 2023 and disposed of all the appeals and concerned applications. Further, the High Court also rejected the prayer made by the petitioner’s counsel to stay operation of the judgement.