Give petitioner teacher’s job in place of minister’s daughter: Calcutta HC – Hindustan Times

The Calcutta high court on Friday ordered the state government to appoint a woman as a high school teacher in place of Bengal minister Paresh Adhikari’s daughter Ankita Adhikari, who had illegally secured the job.

The woman, Babita Sarkar, was not selected for the post in 2018 despite being eligible.

Sarkar’s lawyer, Firdous Shamim, said the court had ordered that she be given the appointment letter by June 30 so that she may join duty in July.

Justice Abhijit Gangopadhyay, who passed the order, had earlier cancelled Adhikari’s appointment, ruling that Sarkar deserved the job because she topped the original merit list which was later fudged to accommodate undeserving candidates.

On Friday, he ruled that Sarkar would take up Adhikari’s post at the Indira Girls High School at Mekhligunj in Cooch Behar district. He had earlier ordered Adhikari to return the full salary of her 43-month service — she deposited around ₹7.94 lakh as the first instalment.

“The court said that the money should be given to Sarkar,” said Shamim.

Justice Gangopadhyay described the appointments as a “shameless” act, said a lawyer who was privy to the hearing.

Adhikari was appointed by the West Bengal Board of Secondary Education (WBBSE) at the recommendation of the state School Service Commission (SSC). The court had found during earlier hearings that the minister’s daughter did not even appear for the personality test.

“The court’s order has overwhelmed me. I am grateful. I will use this money to help people,” Sarkar said after the judgment was passed.

Justice Gangopadhyay also ordered a fine of ₹100 on Ankita Adhikari’s lawyer for challenging his earlier order before a division bench. The SSC had also challenged the order of the single bench but the division bench of justice Ananda Kumar Mukherjee and justice Subrata Talukdar upheld the order of justice Gangopadhyay on May 18.

Minister Paresh Adhikari refused to comment. “It is improper to say anything on a sub judice matter,” he said.

Trinamool Congress (TMC) state general secretary Kunal Ghosh said, “Our party has nothing to say on the issue since it is a legal matter.”

Sarkar’s case is among several related to illegal appointment of hundreds of school teachers and staff. The single bench of justice Gangopadhyay had earlier ordered a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe into the appointment of teachers and staff by the SSC. He recently ordered a probe into the appointment of primary school teachers as well.

The CBI has formed a six-member special investigation team (SIT) to take up the investigation.

Since it has been alleged that these jobs were offered against hefty bribe, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) started a parallel investigation on Friday. Sarkar was summoned to the ED office at Salt Lake to record her allegations.

The parallel probe into recruitment of primary school teachers saw a significant development on Thursday when the division bench of justices Subrata Talukdar and Lopita Bandopadhyay heard a petition from around 80 people whose appointments were cancelled by justice Gangopadhyay.

During Thursday’s hearing, the primary education board told the court that an extra mark was given to 269 shortlisted candidates at the final stage of selection since there was an error in one question.

The board was represented by lawyer Kishore Dutta.

Sudipta Dasgupta, a lawyer representing the deprived candidates, asked the state why that one extra mark was not given to all 42,000 selected candidates if there was an indeed an error in the question paper.

The division bench said the case will be heard again next Thursday since the board could not give a satisfactory reply to this question.