Headmaster rule eased

OUR LEGAL REPORTER

Calcutta, Sept. 11: Calcutta High Court has set aside a rule that allowed
only state board schoolteachers to apply for a headmaster’s job under the
West Bengal School Services Commission.

According to the rule, teachers without five years’ experience in a school

under the state board were not allowed to sit for the SSC examination meant for headmaster aspirants.

But today, a division bench of Justices P.K. Roy and M.M. Sarkar said: “The rule of the West Bengal School
Service Commission is contrary to the provisions of the country’s Constitution. So the court is setting it
aside.”

The ruling will open the door for teachers with requisite experience in schools under any other board to sit
for the SSC examination. It also means that teachers from other states can sit for the test.

Ranajit Basu, the School Service Commission chairman, refused to comment before going through the court
order. “We have not yet seen the order.”

The commission was set up in 1997 to recruit teachers and heads of non-government state-aided junior high
(up to Class VIII) and high (up to Class XII) schools across Bengal.

Today’s ruling came on a petition by two teachers, who were not allowed to sit for the SSC exam in 2002
because they taught in CBSE schools in Arunachal Pradesh.

The petitioners, Pradip Kotal of Bankura and Subal Chandra Guchayeet of Midnapore (now West
Midnapore), had moved the high court in 2003.

In his petition, Kotal said he had done his BSc in physics from Burdwan university in 1988 and MSc from
Ranchi University.

Guchayeet did his MSc in mathematics from Ranchi University in 1992.

Both did their BEd from Vidyasagar University in 1994.

“In 1995, they got jobs in two different CBSE schools at Itanagar,” Kaushik Chanda, the lawyer for the
petitioners, said today.

In 2002, when the commission issued a notice inviting applications for the headmaster’s post, the two
applied, but they were not allowed to sit for the test.

Justice G.C. Gupta of the high court had dismissed their petitions in 2006, Chanda said. The same year, the
petitioners moved an appeal against Justice Gupta’s verdict before the division bench.

Arguing for the rule, state counsel Tulshi Maity said the government had set up a committee that did a
comparative study between Bengal board schools and those under the ICSE or CBSE boards.

“The study revealed that the Bengal board syllabus is much wider (in content) than the CBSE and ICSE
boards,” Maity said.

He argued that this was why the SSC had made the rule of allowing only teachers from the Bengal board.
But the division bench refused to accept the argument.

The order will affect 12,000 non-government state-aided schools for which the commission recruits
headmasters and teachers.