Calcutta High Court rejects plea by BJP's Dilip Ghosh to alter TET exam date over clash with Bhagavad Gita event

The Calcutta High Court recently refused to change or postpone the date of Teachers Eligibility Test (TET) as requested by BJP parliamentarian Dilip Ghosh whose Bhagavad Gita Chanting event is likely to clash with the exam date on December 24 [Dilip Ghosh vs State of West Bengal]..A division bench of Chief Justice TS Sivagnanam and Justice Hiranmay Bhattacharyya refused to grant the request made by Ghosh who is also the president of BJP's West Bengal unit. "In our view, it is for the appropriate authority namely, the Education Board and the academicians and administrative authorities to consider all the factors before fixing the date of the exams," the Court observed in its order passed on December 19. The Court noted that the TET exams are set to take place in 773 exam centres. Out of these 773 centres, only five are situated within Kolkata. It noted that these five centres are not within the close proximity of the Maidan area in Kolkata where Ghosh's Bhagavad Gita chanting event is to take place."Thus, in the given facts of the case, the direction sought for in the instant petition cannot be granted. However, all we can observe is that the authorities of the State as well as the Kolkata Police shall ensure that students are not in any manner disrupted from reaching their centres for the exams to be held on December 24," the order said. .The bench was hearing a PIL filed by Ghosh seeking to postpone the date of TET exams as the event is likely to be attended by thousands of people including dignitaries. This, the petition argued would disrupt the traffic in the city and it will in turn block the students' travel because of which they would not be able to reach the centre. A further directive is issued to the Traffic Police to provide adequate transport services to students on showing their hall tickets. This, the bench said is only to ensure that students don't get caught in traffic jams due to Ghosh's event, which is likely to receive huge footfall. .Advocates Biswaroop Bhattacharjee, Partha Ghosh, Amal Kumar Dutta, Simran Sureka and Debasis Das appeared for the Petitioner. Additional Advocate General Samrat Sen along with advocate Saikat Chatterjee represented the State.Senior Advocate LK Gupta along with advocates Ratul Biswas and Koushik Chowdhury represented the Education Board.