A division bench of Calcutta High Court has completed its hearing on a petition by the state government challenging Justice Rajasekhar Mantha’s order directing the Visva-Bharati vice-chancellor to set up an expert committee to find out whether 21 questions in the 2017 Teachers’ Eligibility Test (TET) had errors.

Although the division bench, comprising Justice Harish Tandon and Justice Prasenjit Biswas, reserved its order, it said during the hearing that the bench was in favour of appointing five different experts to examine the 21 questions.

TET is held to shortlist candidates to be appointed as assistant teachers in government-aided primary schools.

Justice Mantha of the same court on April 24 gave the order following petitions by Riya Bandyopadhyay and other candidates who wrote the TET in January 2021 following a notification in 2017.

They alleged that as many as 21 questions in the test were erroneous and demanded full marks be given for those questions as compensation for attempting them.

The state government challenged the contention of the petitioner that 21 questions were in dispute.

It also challenged the order of the single bench on the ground that Justice Mantha sought to engage the experts of an academic institution controlled by the Union government, said an official of the state primary education board. Visva-Bharati is a central university.

Metro reported on April 25 that the primary education board’s lawyer told the court on April 24 that the allegations made by the petitioners were baseless.

The TET was conducted in January 2021 when Manik Bhattacharya headed the state primary education board.

Bhattacharya, a Trinamool Congress MLA,
was arrested by the CBI in October 2022 for his alleged involvement in irregularities in the recruitment of
teachers.

He is still in custody.