A division bench of the Calcutta High Court has concluded its hearing on the state government's petition challenging Justice Rajasekhar Mantha’s directive. The directive had instructed the Visva-Bharati vice-chancellor to establish an expert committee to determine if there were errors in 21 questions from the 2017 Teachers' Eligibility Test (TET).

Although the division bench, consisting of Justice Harish Tandon and Justice Prasenjit Biswas, reserved its order, they indicated during the hearing that they were inclined to appoint five separate experts to review the 21 questions.

The Teachers' Eligibility Test (TET) is conducted to shortlist candidates for appointment as assistant teachers in government-aided primary schools. On April 24, Justice Rajasekhar Mantha issued an order in response to petitions by Riya Bandyopadhyay and other candidates who took the TET in January 2021, following a notification in 2017.

The petitioners alleged that 21 questions in the test were erroneous and demanded full marks as compensation for attempting them. However, the state government challenged the petitioners' claim that there were issues with those 21 questions.

The state government also contested the single bench's order on the grounds that Justice Mantha sought to engage experts from an academic institution controlled by the Union government, according to an official of the state primary education board. Visva-Bharati is a central university.

On April 25, Metro reported that the primary education board’s lawyer argued in court that the allegations made by the petitioners were baseless. The TET was conducted in January 2021 under the leadership of Manik Bhattacharya, who was the head of the state primary education board at the time. Bhattacharya, a Trinamool Congress MLA, was arrested by the CBI in October 2022 for his alleged involvement in irregularities in the recruitment of teachers and remains in custody.