Justice Abhijit Gangopadhyay of the high court on Tuesday asked Manik Bhattacharya, whose removal from the post of the primary education board president the judge had ordered on Monday, to submit by July 5 a list of properties owned by him and his wife.
A list of properties owned by his son and daughter before their marriage will also have to be submitted.
The judge had on Monday said Ratna Chakraborty Bagchi, now secretary of the board, would function as acting president till Bhattacharya’s successor was appointed.
As directed by the judge, Bhattacharya was in the court to face questions in connection with alleged irregularities in the recruitment of teachers by the board for government-aided primary schools.
Justice Gangopadhyay asked Bhattacharya about his academic qualifications. Bhattacharya said he was LLB, LLM and PhD and he owned a flat in Jadavpur in south Kolkata and landed property in Nayabad, near Garia on the southern fringes, which was bought in 1984-85.
Education department sources said no notification had yet been issued to remove Bhattacharya from the post because he moved an appeal before a division bench seeking a stay on Justice Gangopadhyay’s order. The bench will hear the appeal on Thursday.
A division bench headed by Justice Subrata Talukdar on Tuesday refused to grant the primary education board’s prayer to set aside Justice Gangopadhyay’s order for a CBI investigation into alleged illegal recruitment of teachers for primary schools.
