Calcutta High Court (Appellete Side)
Bitika Majumder vs The Uluberia Municipality & Ors on 7 September, 2015
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24 07.9.201 WP 5907(w) of 2015
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Bitika Majumder
Vs.
The Uluberia Municipality & Ors.
ar Mr. Rama Prasad Sarkar
... For the Petitioner
Mr. Susanta Pal
... For the Respondent no. 2
Mr. G.C. Bandyopadhyay ... For the Uluberia Municipality Mr. Pantu Deb Roy Mr. Subrata Guha Biswas Mr. Amit Kumar Das Mr. Rezaul Hossain ... For the State Let the affidavit of service along with two reports in the form of two affidavits filed in Court be kept with the record.
The petitioner submits that pursuant to my order dated July 09, 2015 the petitioner's name was recorded in Uluberia Municipality to work as a midday meal cook cum helper for another school where the petitioner has joined. Mr. G.C. Bandyopadhyay, the learned advocate for the Uleberia Municipality has taken a point that the present Chairman assumed the charge with effect from May 18, 2015 and before that whatever had happened is a matter on 2 record for him. All that was available by way of record which he has annexed to the report. He is not in the know of why the petitioner's name was not included in the second panel of midday meal cook cum helper.
Although the reasons indirectly appear in the report of the Chairman of the Municipality since he was not the person concerned he perhaps cannot know what the erstwhile Chairman has done.
I, however, do not appreciate the way the school authority acted. The school should have intimated the matter to the appropriate authority long before.
From the correspondence annexed to the report it appears that January 10, 2014 was the first date on which the school had intimated the Municipality as well as the local Sub-Divisional officer that the school was going without midday meal for about two months. This is a matter which ought to have been brought to the notice of the appropriate authority long before. The children of the school for whom the midday meal is arranged went without it for a very long time. There is no explanation in the report why the school did not bring it to the notice of the 3 appropriate authority in time.
On the contrary, it appears from the letter addressed to the Sub-Divisional Officer that on July 29, 2013 the President of a political party has raised an objection to the name of the cook and, therefore, the engagement of the cook was withheld for the time being to avoid any undesirable incident in the school. This statement is, however, not supported by the mass petition made by the local villagers to the S.D.O, Uluberaia, inter alia, to the effect that the cooks recommended by the Municipality were, in fact, engaged and the petitioner worked for two days. From the third day at the intervention of some workers of a political party cooking of midday meal was stopped.
The villagers made a complaint that a large number of students were being deprived of the benefit of the midday meal because of the incident that took place inside the school. The communication made by the school to the Chairman of the Municipality and the S.D.O, Uluberia, is slightly contradictory. While it is claimed that the concerned CMDM programme could not be started due to an objection of a local people it further says that the school had 4 reported the incident to the Municipality on the very day of occurrence i.e. November 14, 2013. That apart, I directed the school authority to intimate whether the incident had been reported to the law-enforcing agency. It appears that the school did not intimate them. But they, because of the nature of the incident, would have been the most appropriate authority to take action. Now that the petitioner has been engaged in another school on the recommendation of the Municipality I leave the matter at that. The writ petition is disposed of. There shall be no order as to costs. Urgent photostat certified copy of this order, if applied for, be given to the parties on usual undertaking.
(Dr. Sambuddha Chakrabarti, J.) 5