(Madan B. Lokur and S.A. Bobde, JJ.)
Dhananjoy Karmakar ________________________________ Appellant
v.
State of West Bengal and Others ___________________ Respondent(s)
Civil Appeal No. 7951 of 2015†, decided on September 22, 2015
The Order of the court was delivered by
Order
1. Leave granted. The appellant is aggrieved by the judgment and order dated 4-3-2008 passed by the High Court of Calcutta in State of W.B. v. Dhananjoy Karmakar1.
2. The appellant was appointed as an Assistant Teacher (Bengali) sometime in 1996 by the Managing Committee of Kaya Pri Abdur Sobahan Junior High School in Village Kaya, P.O. Gaighata, North 24 Parganas. The school was established in 1972. Subsequently, the West Bengal School Service Commission Act, 1997 (for short “the 1997 Act”) was enacted and pursuant to the said enactment the District Level Inspection Team (for short “DLIT”) inspected the school in 1998 for the purposes of regularising the teachers. The name of the appellant appears at Sl. No. 6 in the report prepared by DLIT and his date of appointment is shown as 13-10-1996. Some other teachers whose names are mentioned in the report were appointed in 1987, 1990, 1992, etc. Since the teachers other than the appellant were regularised by the Managing Committee (respondent) pursuant to the report given by DLIT, the appellant enquired about his non-regularisation. He neither got a satisfactory reply from the Managing Committee nor from the school.
3. A writ petition was then filed by the appellant in the High Court being WP No. 15497 of 2001 which was disposed of with a direction that it may be considered as a representation and that the issue of regularisation of the services of the appellant should be considered by the District Inspector of School.
4. Pursuant to the order passed by the High Court, the District Inspector of schools (SE), North 24 Parganas considered the issue of regularisation of the appellant and passed an order on 12-3-2002. It was stated that the name of the appellant did not appear in the report of DLIT and thus, the appellant was not an organising teacher. Hence, his services could not be regularised. Another reason given was that the number of admissible class unit according to the enrolment of the school is 4 and for which 6 teachers are admissible and approval of appointment of 6 teachers had already been accorded. Yet another reason given was with regard to one additional post for physical and work education with which we are not concerned.
5. Feeling aggrieved by the order dated 12-3-2002 passed by the District Inspector of Schools, the appellant filed a writ petition [No. 4576(W) of 2002] in the High Court of Calcutta. The learned Single Judge vide order dated 15-3-2005 allowed the writ petition. The learned Single Judge found that the name of the appellant did appear in the report of DLIT and therefore, he ought to have been regularised. The learned Single Judge did not consider it necessary to go into the question regarding the number of teachers that were to be regularised in the school.
6. Feeling aggrieved by the order passed by the learned Single Judge, the State preferred an appeal before the Division Bench of the High Court and that appeal was allowed vide order dated 4-3-20081. The High Court considered the provisions of the 1997 Act and came to the conclusion that since the name of the appellant was not recommended for regularisation, his services could not be regularised. The orders referred to above clearly indicate that this ground was not taken by anybody at any point of time, particularly before the District Inspector of Schools. We are not inclined to give any importance to this ground.
7. We are told by the learned counsel appearing for the State of West Bengal that in terms of the order dated 12-3-2002 what is important is that the name of the appellant did not appear in the report of DLIT, therefore, his services could not be regularised. As noted by the learned Single Judge and we have also been shown a photocopy of the report of DLIT, the name of the appellant does appear in the report of DLIT. As far as the appellant not being an organising teacher is concerned, it is explained by the learned counsel for the State that an organising teacher ought to have been a teacher when the school was established. The report of DLIT indicates that all the persons whose services have been regularised, as mentioned above, were appointed after the school was established. Therefore, there is no reason for keeping the appellant out of the scope of regularisation when similarly placed teachers were regularised by the State.
8. We find no substance in any of the reasons brought out for denying regularisation to the appellant. Under the circumstances, we set aside the impugned judgment1 passed by the High Court and uphold the order of the learned Single Judge. The civil appeal is accordingly allowed with no order as to costs.
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† Arising out of SLP (C) No. 10758 of 2008. Arising out of impugned Final Judgment and Order dated 4-3-2008 in FMA No. 276 of 2008 in MAT No. 51 of 2006 passed by the High Court of Calcutta
1 State of W.B. v. Dhananjoy Karmakar, FMA No. 276 of 2008, order dated 4-3-2008 (Cal)
