Justice Abhijit Gangopadhyay of Calcutta High Court on Monday directed the Enforcement Directorate to seize all properties of Manik Bhattacharya, a former chairman of the West Bengal Board of Primary Education, in India and abroad within a month.
Bhattacharya flouted an order, issued by Justice Gangopadhyay on January 21, to pay a fine of Rs 5 lakh for not providing a TET candidate of 2016 with details of her marks. The judge had ordered Bhattacharya to pay the fine to the candidate by February 27.
The high court administration had communicated the order of the court to Bhattacharya, who is in custody in connection with alleged corruption in recruitment in government-aided primary schools.
As Bhattacharya did not pay the fine by the deadline — Monday — the judge asked the ED to seize his “moveable and immovable properties within India and elsewhere in the world” within a month.
The candidate, Sheela Parveen, had sought details of the marks she had scored in the teachers’ eligibility test. She had deposited Rs 500, in accordance with rules, for the information.
The primary education board allegedly declined to provide the details and claimed the candidate had not followed norms. Since Bhattacharya was chairman of the board at that time, Justice Gangopadhyay held him guilty and fined him Rs 5 lakh.
Class IX-X
A case related to alleged illegal recruitment of teachers for classes IX and X came up before Justice Biswajit Basu of the high court. Soon after the resumption of the hearing, the judge said more than 1,000 teachers could have got their jobs illegally.
“But it would not be wise for the court to ask for action against the illegally appointed teachers at a time when Madhyamik is on,” the judge said.