+till+August+15.jpg "HC barres WBSSC Teachers Eligibility Test (TET) till August 15")
The restraining
order issued by Justice Debasish Kargupta says: “The court on March 20
issued an interim stay on the TET till June because the state had failed
to take a decision on the NCTE rule on not permitting candidates to
write the exam after March 31 this year. The education department has
not taken any decision yet. So, this court is extending the time limit
of its earlier order till August 15.”
The TET was slated
for March 20, the day the judge passed the order restraining the
commission from holding the test till June 30. He had fixed June 10 for
the next hearing.
When the court
heard the case yesterday, school service commission counsel Abhijit
Ganguli informed Justice Kargupta that the education department had not
yet taken a decision on the NCTE rule.
The judge took
note of the lawyer’s statement and extended the stay till August 15,
while fixing July 20 as the next date of hearing. The court’s order
plunged into uncertainty the fate of almost 10 lakh candidates aspiring
to take the TET without a BEd degree.
The test was to be conducted to recruit over 12,000 assistant teachers for classes V to VIII in state-aided schools.
Opposition members
in the Assembly had on Monday demanded the government resolve the
crisis and ease the anxiety of the candidates. They asked education
minister Partha Chatterjee to specify steps taken by the government on
the NCTE deadline. He said the government had written to the NCTE to
allow untrained candidates to write the TET.
Justice Kargupta
had passed the interim order on March 20 in response to a batch of
petitions by 70 candidates who had cleared the TET last year but weren’t
recruited. They were told to retake the test this year.
“The NCTE had set
March 31 as the last date for the school service commission to appoint
untrained assistant teachers for schools across Bengal. It had mentioned
that the selected candidates should get a BEd degree within two years
of their recruitment,” advocates Subrata Mukhopadhyay and Vikram
Banerjee, appearing for the petitioners, had said in a joint statement.
They said the NCTE
rule states that successful TET candidates who have not been absorbed
yet need not take the exam again for the next seven years — in case the
test is held once a year.
The lawyers
alleged that the state education department has violated the NCTE rules.
“The education department is ignoring candidates who had cleared the
test last year but were not recruited.”(TT)