Justice Abhijit Gangopadhyay of Calcutta High Court on Friday dropped proceedings against the vice-chairman of Bhatpara Municipality after finding that the allegations against him were baseless.
Debojit Ghosh, the vice-chairman, had been accused of getting a teaching job in a government-aided primary school without qualifying the Teacher’s Eligibility Test.
The judge fined petitioner Koena De Rs 15,000 for wasting the court’s time.
De, a resident of North 24-Parganas, had moved the case alleging that Ghosh had landed the teaching job despite only having a Class VIII certificate.
The petitioner had claimed that while applying for a passport, the vice-chairman had mentioned his academic qualification.
Based on the petition, Justice Gangopadhyay had summoned Ghosh to his court. The judge had even asked police to ensure his presence in the court on Friday.
The vice-chairman turned up in the court and showed the judge proof of his academic qualifications: his graduation certificate and his diploma in education certificate. He also produced documents to show he had cracked TET.
Ghosh informed the court that with this qualification he got the job of a primary school teacher and after that he became vice-chairman of Bhatpara Municipality.
The vice-chairman said he had never applied for a passport.
After verifying the documents and recording the vice-chairman’s submission, the judge fined petitioner De Rs 15,000.
SSC ‘mistake’
Appearing for the West Bengal School Service Commission (WBSSC), a lawyer on Friday informed Justice Gangopadhyay that nine wait-listed candidates were erroneously given appointments by superseding other candidates on the list.
In response to an earlier order of the court, the WBSSC has been appointing teachers for classes IX and X from candidates on the waiting list of TET 2016, which has 283 names.
The judge advised the WBSSC to sit with nine lawyers connected with school recruitment cases and sort out the problem.
The case will be heard again on December 22.