Justice Abhijit Gangopadhyay of the high court on Thursday issued an interim order asking Bobita Sarkar, who was appointed as a teacher in a government-aided school in June, to deposit the amount she had received from Ankita Adhikari in a separate account till further orders.
The order was issued after a two-hour hearing in a case that will decide who among Bobita and Anamika Roy should get the job in place of Ankita, daughter of former minister state for education Paresh Adhikari.
Ankita lost her job in May last year after it emerged that she was recruited illegally by the West Bengal School Service Commission.
Bobita moved the court on Monday over an alleged discrepancy in the academic score allotted to her by the commission.
If it is proved that the commission allotted her 33 instead of 31 as academic score, she might lose her job, an official in the school education department said.
A commission official told The Telegraph that Bobita should have been awarded an academic score of 31, out of 35. Instead, she was awarded 33.
“It appears that the mistake happened while allotting marks for the graduation results while the academic credentials of the candidates were being verified by the commission’s regional office in Malda in 2017,” the official said.
Anamika has moved the court with the plea that she be appointed in Ankita’s place. Both petitions came up for hearing before Justice Gangopadhyay on Thursday.
This is the first time the court is facing such a dilemma over the issue.
“I asked the SSC to appoint Bobita if it was found that she deserved the job,” the judge said.
The SSC lawyer replied: “The job was given to Bobita after the court ordered it.”
After the hearing, the judge issued an interim order and fixed the matter for hearing again on January 9.
Till then, Bobita has to keep in an account the amount that Ankita had drawn as salary and was transferred to Bobita following an order from the court.
The judge asked Bobita to submit a short note stating what was her claim and asked the SSC to submit a note saying what it could do in this situation.
SSC chairman Siddhartha Majumdar said: “We will submit the report in due course.”
The alleged discrepancy came to light after the commission had in July uploaded on its website details of the marks of those whose names had featured on the merit list for the higher secondary level.
The details include the score in the written test and the academic score, which is a combination of the marks at the secondary, HS, graduation and postgraduation levels.
Bobita scored 440 out of 800 in graduation — 55 per cent. If she had scored 480 (60 per cent), she deserved 8 in the graduation segment of the academic score.
“Instead of awarding her 6, SSC had given her 8,” said lawyer Srudipto Dasgupta, who is appearing for Anamika.
