Bengal Education Dept faces Calcutta HC’s ire for wrong calculation of teacher's service period

Kolkata, Sep 18 (IANS) The West Bengal Education Department faced the ire of the Calcutta High Court for wrong calculation of service of a teacher of a state run-school.

Following the wrong calculation, mathematics teacher Jayanta Burman lost a total of nine months from his service period.

As per records of the state Education Department, Burman joined service on October 14, 2018 as the Rampur Higher Secondary School in North Dinajpur district of West Bengal.

In July 2019, he was transferred to Dudunda Aloktirtho Vidyapith in the same district and he joined there on July 10, 2019. However, to his surprise, his service period was later counted from July 10, 2019, that is with the second school in his teaching career.

Not only the first nine months of his service at Rampur Higher Secondary School  deducted from his service period but also the salary for those months was denied.

A depressed Burman then approached the Calcutta High Court in the matter.

Hearing the case, Justice Biswajit Basu summoned the district inspector (DI) of schools for North Dinajpur district for a response but his explanation to the court irked the judge further. The official said was that during the period, Burman served at Rampur Higher Secondary School, there was no approved post of mathematics teacher at the school and hence his appointment was not considered as approved.

Justice Basu observed that in that case the fault was with the office of the district inspector of schools and not with the teacher that his appointment was made to a school where there was no sanctioned post for which the appointment was given.

When the DI failed to give any plausible counter argument, Justice Basu ordered the inclusion of those nine months in the service period of the teacher concerned along with the immediate payment of his salary for that period.