West Bengal Board Of Primary ... vs Payel Bag & Ors
2021 Latest Caselaw 4904 Cal

17
Court
No. 11   17.9.2021                          MAT 953 of 2021
G.S.Da
s                                                With
                                             CAN 1 of 2021
                                                      [




                            West Bengal Board of Primary Education & Ors.
                                                    -Vs-
                                               Payel Bag & Ors.
                                            (Via Video Conference)

                     Mr. L. K. Gupta
                     Mr. Subir Sanyal
                     Mr. Ratul Biswas
                                                           ... for the appellants


                     Mr. Bikram Banerjee
                     Mr. Sudipta Dasgupta
                     Mr. Arka Nandi
                     Mr. Saikat Sutradhar
                                                           ... for the Respondents

Mr. Sauvik nandy ... for the NCTE

Mr. Amal Kr. Sen Mr. Sajal Pandit .. for the respondent no.20

Party/Parties is/are represented in the order of

their name/names as printed above in the cause title.

Mr. Gupta, Learned Senior Counsel, appears for

the appellants with Mr. Sanyal, Learned Counsel and

Mr. Biswas, Learned Advocate.

Mr. Banerjee, Learned Counsel, appears for the

respondents with Mr. Dasgupta, Learned Advocate.

The respondents were the writ petitioners before

the Hon'ble Single Bench.

Under challenge in this appeal is the order

impugned dated 3rd September, 2021 in the writ

petition. By the order impugned the Hon'ble Single

Bench directed the appellants to complete the process

of appointment of the respondents/the writ petitioners

in the Teachers Eligibility Test (TET), 2014 by following

in letter and spirit the earlier directions of the Hon'ble

Court which, inter alia, directed the Board to award

marks to the writ petitioners who attempted to answer

the wrong questions/options in the key answers of the

JGB question booklet series.

It is not in dispute that the TET 2014 question

booklet contained six questions/options which

permitted inconsistent interpretations connected to

their answers. It is a further admitted position that two

questions were wrong.

Therefore, the writ petitioners/the respondents,

who are 19 in total, were qualified to get complete

marks for the two wrong questions.

However, the point on which the appellants and

the respondents differ is with regard to the remaining

four questions.

On behalf of the appellants it is argued that in

respect of the remaining four questions, the questions

were correct. However, the key answers supplied by the

Board were wrong.

It is further argued that expert(s) appointed to

examine the answers to the said four

questions/options as supplied by the Board, found

them to be wrong.

Therefore, Mr. Gupta submits that a fair

interpretation of the Hon'ble Court's direction would

mean and imply that in the event the respondents/the

writ petitioners did not answer the four questions in

issue in accordance with the correct key answers

provided by expert(s), they were not entitled to

additional marks at all.

Per contra, Mr. Banerjee, Learned Counsel,

submits that out of the four questions, one question

was confusing and three questions contained the

wrong answers supplied by the Board and therefore, it

was the unequivocal direction of the Hon'ble Court that

the six questions in all had prejudiced the attempts of

the examinees/the writ petitioners and others to

answer them correctly. The Hon'ble Court had

accordingly directed marks to be awarded on the basis

of the attempts made to answer either the wrong

questions or, the wrong options.

Mr. Nandi, Learned Counsel, appearing for the

NCTE submits that in terms of the appointment

procedure the TET certificate has to be granted to the

successful candidates in the event they (the writ

petitioners) are found to be successful upon award of

marks in the six wrong questions/options.

After hearing the parties and considering the

materials placed at this stage, this Court finds the

approach of the writ petitioners/respondents to be

correct. The writ petitioners/respondents are

accordingly entitled to the reliefs as granted by the

Hon'ble Single Bench.

However, since it is submitted on behalf of the

appellants/the Board that the process of taking steps

in terms of the order of the Hon'ble Single Bench dated

3rd September, 2021 has already commenced and is

likely to mature by the 1st of October, 2021, this Court,

awaiting the report on the subsequent developments

from the parties, only grants an interim relief in favour

of the appellants/Board in terms of paragraph 21(d) of

the Judgment and order impugned dated 3rd

September, 2021, till the next date of hearing.

It is made clear that there is no stay of the

operative part of the order impugned as contained in

Paragraphs 21(a), 21(b), 21(c) and 21(e) of the

impugned Judgment and order dated 3 rd September,

2021 except, that the time limit for compliance of the

same is extended till the next date.

The matter is made returnable under the

heading "To Be Mentioned" at the top on the 4th of

October, 2021.

All parties to the act on the gist of the

communication of this order.

All parties to act on a server copy of this order

duly obtained from the official website of the Hon'ble

High Court, Calcutta.

(Kesang Doma Bhutia, J.) (Subrata Talukdar,J.)