Kolkata, June 9 (IANS) The Calcutta High Court on Monday reserved its judgement on a plea challenging the West Bengal government notification for a monthly stipend to be paid to non-teaching staff, under Group-C and Group-D categories, who lost their jobs in state-run schools in the state following a Supreme Court order.

A single-judge bench of Justice Amrita Sinha kept the judgment on reserve after hearing the matters in two phases, both the first half and the second half of the court’s session on Monday.

However, Justice Sinha orally asked the state government not to begin payment of money to the non-teaching staff immediately. She also raised questions on the basis on which the state government decided to pay the stipend to the non-teaching staff losing jobs.

She also raised questions based on the calculation of the stipend amounts to be paid to the job-losing non-teaching staff. At the same time, she also questioned whether there had been instances in the past of the state government paying stipends to job-losing state government employees.

She also questions what the state government will get in return from those job-losing non-teaching staff against the stipend paid to them.

Last month, the West Bengal government issued a notification announcing the new scheme under the state Labour Department. Under the “West Bengal Livelihood and Special Security Interim Scheme”, the job-losing Group-C staff would be entitled to a monthly stipend of Rs 25,000, while those in the Group D category would be entitled to Rs 20,000 monthly.

Announcing the launch of the scheme, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said that the scheme was planned under the state Labour Department because of the tendencies of some people and vested interests to file public interest litigations at the Calcutta High Court against any decision of the state government.

However, with three successive petitions being filed at the Calcutta High Court, the state government’s desire to avoid a legal battle over the scheme was not fulfilled.

On April 3, the Supreme Court upheld the Calcutta High Court order that annulled 25,753 school appointments made through the WBSSC, observing that the panel had to be scrapped entirely due to the authorities’ failure to distinguish between “tainted” and “untainted” candidates.

The state government and the WBSSC have since filed review petitions in the Supreme Court seeking reconsideration of the order.

–IANS

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