01.10.2026 Item No.10 Court. No. 7 pk CALCUTTA HIGH COURT IN THE CIRCUIT BENCH AT JALPAIGURI APPELLATE JURISDICTION MAT 94 of 2026 CAN 1 of 2026 Prabhat Ranjan VS The State of West Bengal and others Mr. Sahjahan Ali, Ms. Madhushri Dutta … for the appellant. Mr. Kunaljit Bhattacharjee, Ld AGP Mr. Shubhankar Dutta … for the State. 1. The instant appeal is directed against a judgment and order dated 12.08.2026 passed by the Single Bench of this Court in WPA 1213 of 2026. 2. The admitted facts are that the petitioner/appellant is an assistant teacher of a school with a honours degree. He applied for permission to undergo a post graduate course before the Managing Committee of the school. The school allowed the same. He completed the post graduate degree successfully in 2017. 3. The school forwarded the request of the petitioner/appellant for undergoing the post graduate course before the jurisdictional D. I. of Schools. The D. I. of Schools refused to grant such permission. 4. The writ petition was filed before the Single Bench, inter alia, seeking the benefit of the order of a Full Bench of this Court in the case of Utpal Kanti Karan Vs. State 2 of West Bengal and others reported in 2024 Supreme (Cal) 584 particularly paragraph 185 thereof. Paragraph 185 is set out below: “185. In exceptional circumstances the claim of a teacher for a higher scale of pay even where the Managing Committee has not forwarded the application with its resolution may be considered. It is clarified that if the teacher could demonstrate that he has taken all reasonable steps expected of him for obtaining prior permission from the District Inspector and the Managing Committee is responsible for the delay in forwarding the request for permission to the District Inspector shall consider the application on the basis of the circular or Government Order existing on the date of application In absence of any guideline which the District Inspector of School is required to follow in the event it is found that a teacher before joining the institution was already pursuing higher studies or has completed post graduate degree but for some unavoidable reasons permission as contemplated under the Government Order dated 27th November, 2007 could not be obtained, the Government Order dated 27th November, 2007 shall not stand in the way. The District Inspector shall consider such representation on merits. The reason for denying higher scale of pay could be that already there are sufficient number of teachers having Honours/ Post Graduate degree on the said subject in the institution and in such circumstances payment of higher scale of pay would be a burden on the exchequer. The State should have due regard to the fact that a person with higher qualification would be expected to have better knowledge in the subject and the students are likely to be benefited by reason of his acquiring such higher qualification. The date relevant for the purpose of conferring higher financial benefits would be the date of publication of result and not convocation, that is, the ceremonial conferment of the degree. A teacher is entitled to higher scale of pay once the result is published and the convocation shall relate back to the date of the result. Any other interpretation would be harsh, absurd and arbitrary.” 5. In view of the aforesaid, the writ petitioner/appellant would be entitled to not only undergo the post graduate course and avail of the benefit of the post graduate scale 3 of pay without prior permission of the said jurisdictional D. I. 6. It appears that the aforesaid decision in Utpal Kanti Karan (supra) was not placed before the Single Bench as a consequence whereof the writ petition was dismissed. 7. In the light of the observations of the Full Bench of this Court cited herein above in Utpal Kanti Karan (supra), the writ petition is allowed. 8. The impugned judgment and order shall stand set aside. 9. The appellant has admittedly finished and successfully completed the post graduate course in the year 2017. He would be entitled to the post graduate scale from the date following the last day of examination in such post graduate course i.e. 29th September, 2017. 10. The scale of pay of the petitioner shall stand retrospectively revised. 11. Let fresh pay certificate be issued by the concerned D. I. of Schools to the petitioner/appellant within one month from the date. Let all arrears of pay i.e. the difference between the graduate scale of pay and post graduate scale of pay from September, 2017 till the date paid to the petitioner within two months from the date of communication of a copy of this order. 12. With the aforesaid observations, MAT 94 of 2026 is allowed and disposed of. Consequently connected pending application being CAN 1 of 2026 is also disposed of. 4 13. There will be no order as to costs. 14. All parties shall act on the server copy of this judgment duly downloaded from the official website of this Court. (Rajasekhar Mantha, J.) (Reetobroto Kumar Mitra, J.)