Calcutta HC slams WBBPE for submitting faulty merit list on primary teachers’ recruitment
Kolkata: West Bengal Board of Primary Education (WBBPE) on Saturday faced the wrath of a single-judge bench of the Calcutta High Court for producing faulty and incomplete merit lists of primary teacher’s recruitment in the state for 2014, 2016 and 2020.
Recently, WBBPE submitted the complete merit lists for these three years at the Calcutta High Court’s single- judge bench of Justice Abhijit Gangopadhyay. However, after examining them, Justice Gangopadhyay returned those documents to the board authorities terming them faulty and incomplete, as the marks secured by the candidates named in the merit lists were not mentioned there.
“Since the marks of the candidates are not mentioned in the merit lists, such documents do not have any credibility to the court,” Justice Gangopadhyay said and also directed the board authorities to submit complete merit lists at the earliest.
In the matter, Justice Gangopadhyay also questioned the CBI counsel about the progress of the agency sleuths regarding complaints of irregularities in appointments of 10 relatives of Bishwambhar Mondal, bodyguard of former West Bengal education minister, Partha Chatterjee.
The CBI counsel informed the court that eight of those 10 individuals have already been questioned, while the other two did not turn up. Justice Gangopadhyay directed the CBI to complete the questioning process by September 15 and submit a detailed report to his bench by September 20. “I do not want to be informed again on that day that the questioning process is yet to be completed,” he said.
During the course of hearing, Justice Gangopadhyay became quite nostalgic recollecting his days as a practicing lawyer, when he himself represented the WBBPE.
“I feel sad when as a judge I have to direct central armed forces to go to that office, whose nooks and corners I am well aware of. I represented that office along with Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharya even at the Supreme Court of India. At that point of time, there was no corruption. Rather there was ample transparency in the recruitment process,” Justice Gangopadhyay commented.