Fresh charges of misplacing blank answer sheets on the third day of Madhyamik examination were levelled against the headmaster of Mainaguri Subhasnagar High School even as previous allegations are being probed.

The state government in fact has signalled that Haridayal Roy may be stripped of his title of Siksha Ratna if the charges against him are proven to be correct.

Reports of Roy supplying answers to the first boy of the school in desperation to include the name of the school in the merit list surfaced against him yesterday.

Two assistant teachers filed a complaint with the sub-inspector (SI) of schools, Maynaguri block, Biswanath Bhowmik, alleging that the headmaster adopted unfair means in the examination that was just concluded.

The West Bengal Board of Secondary Education (WBBSE) is probing the charges, while Roy has been relieved of his duties from the upcoming Higher Secondary examination, the school education department informed.

The assistant head of the school has been asked to take over the duties of examination instead.

“The alleged act of the headmaster of the Moinaguri school does not befit a teacher. As for his being awarded Siksha Ratna in 2014, it would be revoked if he is found guilty in the investigation,” state education minister said, clarifying the state government’s stand.

The supervisor, Bishwanath Bhoumick, on Thursday alleged that the school had been sent four bunches of answer sheets which is the standard norm but Roy had demanded another packet complaining that he had been given one packet less.

“After four packets containing bunches of blank pages of answer scripts, the headmaster has to sign a receipt. It was on the third day of the examination that Roy had claimed that he had been given one packet less containing bunch of answer sheets and that he needs another bunch, yet he had signed the receipt. I had arranged for another bunch as I did not want to hamper the ongoing examination process,” Mr Bhowmick said.

“Now that I think that might have been a ploy to get extra sheets on which the correct answers could have been written and later included in the pile of answer sheets. Roy had also sent the additional venue supervisor to an errand few minutes before the examination which caught our attention,” he further added.

The accused teacher has defended himself by claiming that he has been framed by a teacher of his school who posed as the informant of the board and surrounding schools who are envious of the success of his school.

Addressing the allegations against him, the accused teacher said: “Only levelling accusations against me is not fair. These charges have to be proven as well. There are about 50 teachers in my school and taking account of the fabricated story of one teacher is not correct. I urge the board members to come down to my school and inquire all teachers of the school.”

“They had deliberately given me inadequate blank answer scripts and out of sheer trust I had signed the receipt. Later, while sorting, I saw that there was one packet short and so I asked for more. I had no idea this will be used against me.

“This school is the most famous school of the area. Whereas there are only 20-30 students in nearby schools, we have over 100 students attending our school and this does not go down well with other schools and so this elaborate plan has been constructed to put us down,” Roy said in his defence.

Earlier, WBBSE president Kalyanmoy Ganguly had said that it was a “grave professional misconduct” and that it would be enquired into, and exemplary punishment will be handed over to the accused, if found guilty.