HC reserves verdict on govt stipend for non-teaching staff

State counsel questioned the interest of the petitioners in blocking the stipend while the counsel for the petitioner said since it is public money anyone has the right to know how money is spent

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The Calcutta High Court on Friday concluded the hearing on a petition challenging the West Bengal government notification for a monthly stipend to be paid to non-teaching staff, under group-C and group-D categories, who lost their jobs in state-run schools in the state following a Supreme Court order, and reserved its verdict.

The counsels for both the petitioners and the state government submitted their closing remarks before the single-judge Bench of Justice Amrita Sinha, who then reserved the judgment.

The state government counsel, in his closing remarks, questioned the interest of the petitioners in blocking the stipend for the job-losing non-teaching staff. The counsel for the petitioner, in his counter-argument, claimed that since the stipend is being paid from the state government exchequer constituted by public money, anyone has the right to seek justification behind how that money is spent.

During the previous hearing in the matter on 9 June, Justice Sinha raised questions on the basis of the calculations on which stipend amounts for group-C and group-D staff were determined.

At the same time, she also questioned whether there had been instances in the past of the state government paying stipends to job-losing state government employees. She also questioned what the state government would get in return from those job-losing non-teaching staff against the stipend paid to them.