Subrata Pal And ORS v. State Of West Bengal And ORS.

10.06.2024.

Court No.13 Item No. 4 pk W.P.A. No. 5300 of 2024 Subrata Pal and others

Versus

State of West Bengal and others Mr. Sauvik Nandy, Mr. Subrata Santra ...For the petitioners.

Mr. Saikat Banerjee, Mr. Ratul Biswas, Mr. Kaushik Chowdhury ... for the WBBPE.

Mr. Sirsanya Bandopadhyay, Mrs. Tapati Samanta, Mr. Arindam Ghosh ... for the State.

1. Affidavit of service filed in Court is taken on record.

2. The petitioners participated in the recruitment process of Assistant Teachers conducted by the WBBPE for the year 2022. They possessed B.Ed qualifications and underwent six months PDPET bridge course approved by the NCTE. They claim that they are in service teachers despite working in the private schools. The State is nowhere connected with the payment of their salaries or monitoring their service.

3. The petitioners admit that they had initially filled up the application forms in the aforesaid recruitment process indicating that they were D.El.Ed. qualified candidates. Admittedly, this was a false statement.

4. The petitioners claim that they were required, by the Board, to change their option from D.El.Ed. to B.Ed. as their training qualification.

5. The petitioners seek a direction upon the Board to recognize their six months PDPET bridge course as equivalent to D.El.Ed. They rely upon certain guidelines of the NCTE in this regard.

6. The writ petitioners have admittedly made false declarations in their application forms that they are D.El.Ed. qualifing candidates which they are infact not.

7. The six month bridge course, namely, PDPET appears to be a one time measure introduced by the NCTE for in service B.Ed. teachers already working under and recruited by the State. The petitioners cannot take the benefit of the aforesaid bridge course that was introduced ad-hoc to tide over the crisis of in-service teachers of a valid recognized training course. Admittedly, the B.Ed. qualification of the petitioners is no longer recognized as valid training course pursuant to the decision of the Supreme Court in the case of Devesh Sharma Vs. Union of India reported in 2023 SCC Online SC 985.

8. This Court is of the clear and unequivocal view that the petitioners claim, to say the least, is baffling and cannot be entertained by this Court.

9. The writ petition is dismissed.

10.

There will be no order as to costs.

11.

All parties are directed to act on a server copy of this order duly downloaded from the official website of this Court.

(Rajasekhar Mantha, J.)