Summon from Court: HC demands personal appearance of doctor who issued sickness certificate to an accused

Kolkata: The Calcutta High Court passed an order, directing a Kolkata based doctor to personally appear before it, who had issued a sick certificate for the former advisor of the West Bengal Central School Service Commission, Prof. Santi Prasad Sinha, an accused in an illegal assistant teacher appointment case enabling the latter to not appear before the court.

The certificate stated that the accused was ill, on the basis of which the former advisor sought leave from the court to not appear before it, even though a direction was issued by the court on the same. The court was hearing a plea alleging illegal appointment of assistant teachers in State-run schools in West Bengal pertaining to the State Level Selection Test (SLST), as per a media report in the Live Law.

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The order was passed by the single judge bench of Justice Abhijit Gangopadhyay on Wednesday, who earlier had directed the Chairman of the School Service Commission Soumitra Sarkar, Programme Officer, Samarjit Achary and the former advisor of West Bengal Central School Service Commission, Prof. Santi Prasad Sinha to appear before the court in person at 2 p.m on Wednesday. 

However, the counsel for the former advisor informed the court that Prof. Sinha is ill, further producing a medical certificate issued by a doctor associated with Probe Diagnostic Pvt. Ltd, J. C. Bose, Road, Kolkata as proof. 

The court, in turn, directed the doctor to appear before it by Thursday morning. It observed, "I direct the Registrar General to call the doctor over the phone by 3:45 p.m. today, directing him to appear before this court personally at 10:30 a.m. tomorrow. Communication should also be made through email to the said doctor."

Stating that the court would take further action if the doctor failed to appear before it in the given time, it said, "It is made clear if he fails to appear before this court tomorrow at 10:30 a.m. to satisfy this court about the issuance of the said certificate, further steps will be taken by this court to ensure his presence."

As per the Live Law report, Justice Gangopadhyay had earlier passed an order, cancelling the appointment of six assistant teachers in the Murshidabad district after it got to know that they had been illegally appointed because of the illegal recommendation of the West Bengal School Service Commission (WBSSC). Further, the court had stated that such illegally recruited teachers should not be paid any salary henceforth, observing that the salaries which are already paid to them must be recovered by the District Inspector of Schools (SE), Murshidabad.

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