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Judgment
Shampa Sarkar, J
This matter has been mentioned on the ground of urgency as the petitioner considers himself eligible to appear at the ongoing verification which is being held by the West Bengal Central Service Commission for appointment to the post of assistant teacher in the upper primary level. The petitioner had moved a writ petition on an earlier occasion being W.P. 13590 (W) of 2018. The writ petition was dismissed. The petitioner moved the Hon'ble Division Bench by filing an intra-court appeal being MAT 1367 of 2018. The Hon'ble Division Bench by an order dated April 5, 2019 disposed of the appeal with the following directions:
"However, in paragraphs 18A and 18B of the said application where the appellant made a very specific statement about the possession of the post-graduate degree before the TET Examination of 2015 and the inadvertent mistake of not annexing the same to the application have not practically been answered by the respondents. In paragrapah 13 of the affidavit-in-opposition, paragraph 18 along with 9 other paragraphs have been dealt with as matters of record. The deponent had denied each and every allegation made therein. This is a rather surprising stand taken by the School Service Commission.
Since the statements made in the relevant paragraphs have been evasively dealt with and have been left as a matter of record, we remand the matter to the authorities of the School Service Commission for a fresh consideration whether the appellant is entitled to relaxation of age as claimed by him in terms of the Rule 4.2 of the relevant Rules.
The appellant is granted liberty to make a representaton to the Chairman, School Service Commission within three weeks from date annexing thereto a copy of the marksheet of the M.A. Examination as well as the certificate issued by the University. The representation must also disclose the date on which the appellant acquired it. This is relevant inasmuch as the onus of satisfying the School Service commission that the appellant was in possession of those documents before he made the application for TET Examination of 2015 but due to inadvertent mistake, he failed to mention it in the application, is upon him. The Commission shall dispose of the said representation after giving the appellant and any other persons, as it may deem fit and proper, an opportunity of being heard and the appellant shall be requied to produce the certificate in original.
In case the School Service Commission is satisfied that the appellant possessed the post-graduate degree before he made the application, they shall revisit their earlier decision and take the application of the appellant into consideration, if he is otherwise eligible.
We, however, make it clear that this order is being passed on the very specific submission being made by Mr. Sanyal that all the posts in connection with said advertisement have not been filled up. In case the School Service Commission is of the view that the posts have already been filled up and there is no vacancy, they shall be under no obligation to consider the application of the petitioner and a reply to that effect to the appellant shall be a sufficient compliance of the Court's order.
With the directions as above, the judgement and order impugned in the appeal is set aside and the appeal is disposed of.
There shall be no order as to costs."
Pursuant to the direction of Their Lordships, the order impugned dated May 30, 2019 has been passed. The ordering portion is set out below:
"Age limit as provided in Schedule-I PART-B of the said rule will apply to this case but the petitioner claims the benefit of the 1st Proviso to Rule 4(2) of the said Rule.
The 1st Proviso of Sub-rule (2) of Rule 4 lays down as follows:
......Provided that a non-teaching staff or a Teacher having post- graduate degree but holding lower category of post, may apply with maximum age of 55 years as on the 1st day of January of the year of advertisement......
It appears from the available office records that the Date of Birth of petitioner is 07.12.1969. So, the age of the petitioner stands with respect to 01.01.2016 was 46 years 25 days. The petitioner belongs to General category and petitioner is entitled to be considered upto 40 years of age. Petitioner exceeded the prescribed age-limit by 6 years 25 days. Moreover, it is pertinent to mention that Post Graduation degree is not an essential qualification for Upper Primary Level.
So, his candidature was rejected due to overage.
In view of above facts the representation cannot be considered.
Order of Hon'ble High Court is thus complied with."
It is the contention of the petitioner that he is an in-service candidate and was entitled to the benefit of maximum age limit of 55 years in terms of the proviso to Rule 4.2 of the Rules.
Ms. Dubey Chakraborty, learned advocate appearing for the Commission, submits that the petitioner is not eligible.
From the order impugned, I do not find any reasons assigned by the authority to substantiate the conclusion arrived at about the ineligibility of the petitioner to come within the proviso to Rule 4.2.
I find from the order of the Hon'ble Division Bench that the authority of the Commission was specifically directed to pass a reasoned order as to whether the petitioner could be granted the relaxation of age in terms of Rule 4.2. Although, the authority ha come to a conclusion that the petitioner was not entitled the reasons for the same has not been mentioned.
The order impugned is cryptic and not in terms of the true spirit and tenor of the order of the Hon'ble Division Bench.
Under such circumstances, without going into the merits of the claim of the petitioner this writ petition is disposed of by setting aside the order dated May 30, 2019 and with a further direction upon the Chairman, West Bengal Central School Service Commission, to pass a reasoned order on the basis of the observations made by the Hon'ble Division Bench in MAT 1367 of 2018. Such decision should be taken within a period of 4 (four) weeks from date of communication of this order.
This writ petition is disposed of. There shall be no order as to costs.
Urgent photostat certified copy of this order, if applied for, shall be supplied to the parties as expeditiously as possible.