SAMARESH MONDAL Vs. STATE OF WEST BENGAL

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE petitioner complains of the District Inspector of Schools having rejected the petitioner's request for a higher scale of pay despite the petitioner having obtained a master's degree in the subject relevant to the petitioner's appointment.

(2.) THERE appear to be conflicting judgments of this Court in the case of Tarak Chandra Roy reported at 2008(2) Cal L T 240 and the case of Sauvik Ghosh reported at 2008(1) Cal L J 810 in the sense that two apparently similarly -placed teachers fared differently in the two cases. It is, however, the judgment in Sauvik Ghosh that is the more detailed and it recognised a teacher who had obtained higher qualifications subsequent to the appointment to be entitled to a higher scale of pay on the basis of a government notification notwithstanding the appointment being through the School Service Commission.

(3.) THE detailed judgment in Sauvik Ghosh, however, does not appear to have noticed a circular of June 3, 2002 which the petitioner has relied on here as the basis for the petitioner's claim. The circular provides, inter alia, that honours graduate teachers, who had obtained post -graduate degrees in the subjects relevant to their appointments prior to their dates of joining or had completed their course of studies at the post -graduate level or had appeared at the examination but the results of that examination were not published till the dates of their joining, may be allowed the higher scale of pay.