WPA/9399/2026 of SUTAPA GHANTU Vs STATE OF WEST BENGAL AND ORS. on 16 September 2026

1. Affidavit of service filed in Court today be kept with the records.

2. The petitioner alleges that her application seeking Child Care Leave which was submitted through email before the school authority on repeated occasions have not been considered by the school. The petitioner has been illegally and arbitrarily marked as absent. Her service book has not been updated.

3. Prayer has been made to direct the school authority to take a decision on her applications made seeking Child Care Leave for the purpose mentioned in the application and to update her service book by mentioning the leave period.

4. Learned advocate representing the school submits that the petitioner failed to provide any prior intimation for taking Child Care Leave. The reason for obtaining the leave has not been disclosed.

5. It has been submitted that currently the school is run by the administrator.

6. Upon hearing the submissions made on behalf of the parties and on perusal of the documents annexed to the writ petition, it appears that there are several requests forwarded by the petitioner for grant of Child Care Leave. None of the applications appear to have been answered by the school.

7. As per the communicating memo of the Principal Secretary, School Education Department, Secondary Branch addressed to the Commissioner of School Education dated January 16, 2019, the DI of Schools in the State have been informed that every school must maintain a Roaster for grant of Child Care Leave and sanction those leaves in accordance with extant Rules and in due observance of the sequence in the Roaster to ensure that the candidate praying for leave earlier, if otherwise eligible, must have his/her leave sanctioned by the leave sanctioning authority earlier than those who apply for Child Care Leave later.

8. As per the memorandum of the Finance (Audit) Department, Government of West Bengal memo no. 5560-F(P) dated July 17, 2015 and the memo no. 6444-F(P) dated August 27, 2015, Child Care Leave has been made admissible to the regular female employees of the government aided schools.

9. The school ought to take a decision on the prayer of the petitioner seeking Child Care Leave.

10. As the school is run by the Administrator at present, accordingly, the Administrator is directed to take a decision on the petitioner’s prayer for grant of Child Care Leave strictly in accordance with the prevailing rules at the earliest but positively within a period of eight weeks from the date of communication of this order.

11. The service book of the petitioner shall be updated by mentioning the leave period.

12. An opportunity of hearing shall be provided to the petitioner for production of all documents in support of the applications made by her seeking Child Care Leave.

13. Leave is granted to the petitioner to implead the Administrator of the school as party respondent in the writ petition. A copy of the writ petition along with all supporting documents shall be forwarded to the Administrator at the time of communicating the order of the Court.

14. The writ petition stands disposed of.

15. Parties to act on the basis of the server copy of this order duly downloaded from the official website of this Court.

16. Certified server copy of this order, if applied for, be supplied to the parties upon compliance of all requisite formalities.

(Amrita Sinha, J.)