A vacation division bench of the high court on Thursday issued an interim stay on an order passed by Justice Abhijit Gangopadhyay of the court directing the school education department to remove a headmaster from his post.
The headmaster of a school in North 24-Parganas district was charged with stopping the salary of a teacher, who is a cancer patient.
The division bench, headed by Justice Arijit Banerjee, held that since courts were not the appointing authority and also did not have the power to remove a person from his or her post. “The court is neither the appointing authority nor the authority to decide whether or not a person continues working in his present post,” the division bench said.
The bench, however, did not issue a stay on the other part of the order in which Justice Gangopadhyay had asked the education department to initiate disciplinary proceedings against the headmaster and to disburse the teacher’s salary.
A regular division bench will hear the case in detail later.