Utpal Kanti Karan vs State of West Bengal

Judicial Analysis Court Copy Headnote Facts Arguments Court observation

2024 Supreme(Cal) 584

IN THE HIGH COURT AT CALCUTTA
HARISH TANDON, SOUMEN SEN, KAUSIK CHANDA, JJ.
Utpal Kanti Karan – Appellant
Versus
State of West Bengal and Others – Respondents
WPA No. 14890 of 2001, WPA Nos. 13060, 16707 of 2004, WPA Nos. 2364, 9921, 26423 of 2007, WPA Nos. 12414, 12419, 12420 of 2008, WPA Nos. 15736, 29710 of 2013, WPA Nos. 4698, 10273 of 2016, WPA No. 303 of 2023, CAN No. 1 of 2009 (Old No. CAN 4639 of 2009), CAN No. 1 of 2009 (Old No. CAN 7088 of 2009), CAN Nos. 1, 2 of 2021, CAN No. 1 of 2022, APO No. 343 of 2013, FMA Nos. 583, 584, 585 of 2006, FMA Nos. 557, 2688 of 2007, FMA No. 387 of 2020, FMA Nos. 143, 125 of 2022, MAT No. 421 of 2022
Decided On : 07-02-2024

Advocates:
Advocate Appeared:
For the Appellants : Sridhar Chandra Bagari, Biswarup Biswas, Gora Chand Samanta, N.I. Khan, Amlan Kumar Mukherjee, Anirban Ray, Himadri Sekhar Chakraborty, Sucharita Paul, Swapan Kumar Dutta, Dipankar Dasgupta, Samaresh Chandra Dhara, Mahananda Roy, Lina Majumder, Supriyo Chattopadhyay, Kamalesh Bhattacharyya, Surendra Kumar Sharma, Piush Chaturvedi.
For the Respondents: Subir Sanyal, Sakti Pada Jana, Dwarik Nath Mukherjee, Kamal Mishra, Subhajyoti Das, Tarun Kumar Das, S.N. Mookerji, Tapan Kumar Mukherjee, Tapas Kumar Mukherjee, Supriya Chattopadhyay, Iti Dutta, Pinaki Dhole, Arjun Roy Mukherjee, Biswajit De, Rajlakshmi Ghatak, Debdooti Dutta, Saheli Mukherjee, Kakali Smajpaty, Paritosh Sinha, Lina Majumdar, Pampa Das, Somnath Naskar.

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JUDGMENT :

SOUMEN SEN, J.

1. The present reference is arising out of an order dated 22nd August, 2008 passed by the Division Bench of this Court in Smt. Rinku Sarkar vs. State of West Bengal and Others, WP No. 12414(W) of 2008, Srijit Pal vs. State of West Bengal and Others, WP No. 12419(W) of 2008 and Subimal Sinha vs. State of West Bengal and Others, WP No. 12420(W) of 2008.

2. The Division Bench upon noticing conflict between the views expressed in two earlier coordinate bench decisions in Tarak Chandra Roy vs. State of West Bengal and Others, 2008 (2) CHN 973 (in short ‘Tarak’) and the State of West Bengal and Others vs. Sauvik Ghosh and Others, 2008 (1) CLJ (Cal) 810 (in short ‘Sauvik’) formulated the following questions for consideration by the larger Bench:

(a) Whether in view of the fact that acquisition of higher qualification or qualifications during the service career of an individual is his right and the same acts as an incentive to career advancement as well as acquiring a higher status of academic brilliance, can such a person be forced to stagnate on a lower status perennially and forced to continue to work on a lower scale of pay which is not commensurate to the higher qualifications acquired subsequent to his appointment?

(b) Whether in view of Question No. (a) above, should it not be held that the ratio decided in Tarak Chandra Roy’s case (supra) read with the provisions of Sections 14 and 20 of The West Bengal Schools (Control and Expenditure) Act, 2005 amount to creating an unreasonable embargo upon an individual’s freedom and right to acquire higher educational qualifications and therefore, runs counter to the provisions of Article 14 of the Constitution of India?

(c) If the answer to question no. (a) is in the negative and to question no. (b) in the affirmative then should it not be held that the provisions of Section 14 and 20 of The West Bengal Schools (Control and Expenditure) Act, 2005 are ultra-vires the relevant provisions of the Constitution of India referred to above?

(d) Whether in view of the aforesaid should it not be held that the ratio decided in Tarak Chandra Roy’s case supra, holding that “the petitioner having been appointed in the pass category clearly, therefore, cannot get the benefit of his post graduate qualification” is not the proper proposition and that the correct proposition is the one that has been decided in Sauvik Ghosh’s supra holding, inter-alia, in Para 35 therein that if the Government order dated 18th July 1999 were to mean mutual fixation would be on the basis of the educational qualifications mentioned in the recommendation of the School Service Commission and a teacher appointed on the recommendation of the School Service Commission would be bound by the qualification as mentioned in the recommendation for all time to come and even on enhancement qualification the teacher would not be entitled to the higher scale of pay only because the School Service Commission had mentioned a different qualification in its initial recommendation, the Government Order would have to be struck down as totally arbitrary discriminatory and violative of Article 14.........?

3. Thereafter, another Division Bench in deciding Nirmalendu Maity vs. State of West Bengal, FMA No. 2688 of 2007 with CAN No. 2357 of 2010 upon noticing the constitution of a larger bench to answer the aforesaid questions by an order dated 15th March, 2010 referred the following question to the said larger Bench:

“Whether a teacher who has been appointed through West Bengal School Service Commission in ‘pass category’ can get the benefit of his post graduate qualification for the purpose of getting post graduate scale of pay?”

4. Subsequently, by an order dated 6th September, 2019 Justice Shampa Sarkar noticing apparent conflict in the views expressed in Anupam Santra vs. State of West Bengal and Others in WP No. 25103 of 2012 and State of West Bengal and Others vs. Chandra Bhusan Dwivedi in MAT No. 961 of 2017 with regard to in