In the latest development to the West Bengal teachers' recruitment scam, the Calcutta High Court on June 13, Monday, directed the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to investigate forthwith the alleged illegal teachers' appointments in the primary schools of the state. It also directed Primary Education Board Secretary Ratna Chakraborti Bagchi and President Manik Bhattacharya to appear before the CBI at its office later in the day.
The order was passed by Justice Abhijit Gangopadhyay and the CBI has been directed to institute a case in this regard. The court also ordered the salaries of these teachers working in various schools of the state to be discontinued and directed that they be disallowed from entering their respective places of work. Subsequently, both Chakraborti Bagchi and Bhattacharya appeared before the CBI, as per the HC's directions, and faced grilling for more than four hours, as reported by PTI.
Earlier this year, it was alleged that 269 primary school teachers appointed to government-sponsored and government-aided schools in West Bengal have not qualified the Teachers' Eligibility Test (TET) in 2014. The petitioner claimed that these 269 candidates were awarded an additional 'one' mark for a wrong question out of around 23 lakh aspirants in the test. Moreover, a second panel with the names of these 269 candidates was published in 2017, according to the petition.
Maintaining that the second panel was illegal, the court said that the appointments of these 269 candidates were void. The Calcutta High Court had ordered CBI investigations earlier in at least eight cases of alleged illegalities in the appointment of teaching and non-teaching staff by the West Bengal Board of Secondary Education (WBBSE) in government-sponsored and-aided schools, as per the PTI report.
