The Supreme Court Thursday upheld the Calcutta High Court order invalidating the appointment of 25,753 teachers and non-teaching staff made by the West Bengal School Service Commission (SSC) in 2016 in the state-run and state-aided schools, saying “the entire selection process is vitiated and tainted by fraud”.
A bench of Chief Justice of India Sanjiv Khanna and Justice Sanjay Kumar said, “The process is tainted beyond repair. The legitimacy of the selection process is denuded due to widespread manipulation and fraud”.
Reading out the judgement, Justice Khanna said candidates already appointed need not hand over the salary paid to them so far. Justice Khanna, however, said nothing after this period of termination and resuming of fresh service will be treated as vacant service.
The court said a fresh selection process be initiated and completed within three months and that relaxation can be given to the untainted candidates in the fresh process.
The bench also fixed April 4 to hear the Special Leave Petition filed by West Bengal challenging the High Court order directing a probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in the matter.
The SC had earlier allowed the CBI investigation ordered by the High Court to continue with the condition that no coercive steps be taken.
On April 22, 2024, the Calcutta High Court cancelled the recruitment of 25,753 teachers and non-teaching staff by SSC, ordering them to return their salaries with interest. The court also ordered fresh recruitment against the posts within 15 days. The bench, led by Justice Debangsu Basak, observed that the OMR sheets of Group C, Group D, Classes 9 and 10 were manipulated in 2016, making all the recruitments illegal. It added that the names of those who were recruited were included in the panel illegally.
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Challenging this before the SC, the West Bengal Government said in its appeal that the HC, instead of segregating the valid appointments which could not have formed part of the adjudication as opposed to the alleged illegal ones, “has erroneously set aside the selection process in its entirety”. It said that no case for cancellation of the entire selection process was made out.
“…The Hon’ble Court has, instead of separating the grains from the chaf,f proceeded to paint the entire selection process with the same colour of irregularity, leaving the state government, as an appointing authority and as the authority responsible to maintain the teacher-pupil ratio in schools, in a precarious position,” it said.
The state said the Calcutta High Court based on only oral submissions, “without any affidavit on record, has proceeded in a cursory manner”, and directed the cancellation “in utter disregard to the fact that the same will lead to a huge vacuum in the state schools, unless new selection process is completed by the SSC, especially when the new academic sessions is on its brim, leading to the students being adversely impacted”.
