20.08.2026 Item No.7 Ct. No.652 PG WPA 9873 of 2025 With I.A. No. CAN 1 of 2025 Shah Md. Khaibul Alam & Ors. Vs The State of West Bengal & Ors. Mr. Kamalesh Bhattacharya Mr. Aninda Bhattacharya ….for the petitioners Ms. Subhanwita Ghosh……for the State 1. This is a writ petition by the petitioners, who were the Organising Teachers and Non-Teaching staff of the school, to seek relief that approval of their appointment may be granted with effect from 03.02.2017, in stead of 29.11.2024. 2. Parties are represented. 3. Mr. Bhattacharya, learned advocate for the petitioners has submitted that the petitioners’ approval of appointment has been directed to be granted by this Court, in an earlier writ petition being WPA 2464(W) of 2017, vide order dated 03.02.2017. The Court directed for approval of appointment of the petitioners within a period of three months from the date of the said order. 4. In a contempt proceeding filed by the petitioners thereafter, alleging will full disobedience of the Court’s order dated 03.02.2017, the respondents had filed a compliance report, thereby granting 2 approval of appointment to the petitioners with effect from 29.11.2024. 5. In the instant writ petition, the petitioners’ contention is that since the Court directed a time-bound grant of approval of appointment to the petitioners vide order dated 03.02.2017, petitioners may be granted approval with effect from a date immediately after completion of three months from the date of the said order. 6. Mr. Bhattacharya, learned advocate for the petitioners informs that such date comes to be 03.05.2017. 7. In the instant writ petition, the petitioners have prayed for grant of approval of their appointment with effect from 03.05.2017. 8. Ms. Subhanwita Ghosh, learned advocate has assisted the Court on behalf of the State. Let the appointment of Ms. Subhanwita Ghosh, learned advocate be regularised in the instant writ petition, in due course. 9. Ms. Ghosh has taken fair amount of trouble to find out about a pending appeal in connection with the instant writ petition, in which the said order of the Court dated 03.02.2017 has been challenged. The appeal number is shown in the High Court website as MAT 625 of 2017. However, she has most fairly and categorically 3 submitted that record of the appeal is untraceable in the department at present. 10. Having heard submissions of both the learned advocates and perusing the documents on record, it appears that the petitioners claimed to have continuously worked in the school since from the year 2008 onwards. 11. It further appears that the Court vide order dated 03.02.2017 as mentioned above, directed for approval of their appointment by the respondent authority. 12. The respondent authority, without complying with the Court’s order for a time bound approval of the said petitioners within three months from the date of the order of the Court, has finally granted such approval only on 29.11.2024. The reasons for such delay is not apparent from the order dated 07.01.2025 of the respondent authority excepting that 29.11.2024 is the date on which the contempt application has been disposed of by the Court. However, date of disposal of the contempt application has no relevance with what should be the effective date of approval of the writ petitioners. The order of the Court dated 03.02.2007 does have. 13. A report is filed today in Court by the District Inspector of Schools (Secondary Education), Uttar Dinajpur dated 19.08.2026, which is 4 taken on record. The same is practically of no help for this Court. 14. In such circumstances, the Court is of considered opinion that there should have been some reasonable, cogent or justifiable ground for the respondent authority not to comply with the Court’s order within the stipulated period by granting order of approval of the petitioners appointment within three months from the date of the said order. In absence thereof its order granting approval of appointment from 29.11.2024, which is a date beyond the three months period as directed by the Court stands to be unreasonable and arbitrary apart from being in gross violation of the Court’s order as above. 15. For the reasons as above, let this writ petition be disposed of with the following directions: (i) The District Inspector of Schools (Secondary Education), Uttar Dinajpur is directed to issue orders immediately, maximum within a period of three weeks from the date of communication of this order, thereby modifying its earlier letter dated 07.01.2025, in which the said office has approved appointment of the petitioners with effect from 29.11.2024. 5 (ii) Let the District Inspector of Schools (Secondary Education), Uttar Dinajpur issue directions for approval of appointment of the respective petitioner with effect from 03.05.2017. (iii) The directions made in paragraph 15 (i) and (ii) of this order shall be immediately complied with, subject to result of the appeal being MAT 625 of 2017, if at all pending. 16. At this point Mr. Bhattacharya has submitted that directions may be passed for pay-fixation of the petitioners and for payment of arrear salary. The same would however, have an effect of expanding the scope of the order dated 03.05.2017 passed by this Court earlier, which is the genesis of the instant writ petition. Therefore the Court refrains from commenting anything on the same. Suffice is to say that the writ petitioners shall be eligible for applicable service benefits from the date of their approval of service as above. 17. Urgent photostat certified copy of this order, if applied for, be given to the parties on usual undertaking. (Rai Chattopadhyay, J.)