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Tainted Bengal school teachers cannot sit for fresh recruitment test: Calcutta HC
The appointments of all 25,752 school teachers and non-teaching staff (Group-C and D) from the 2016 recruitment panel were cancelled by the Supreme Court on April 3
Kolkata: The Calcutta high court on Monday ordered the West Bengal School Service Commission (WBSSC) to bar identifiable tainted recruits from the 2016 panel, whose appointments were cancelled by the Supreme Court in April in the bribe-for-job case, from appearing for the fresh selection test for the Bengal government school teachers, lawyers who attended the hearing said.
“While hearing petitions filed by a section of the jobless teachers, Justice Saugata Bhattacharyya ordered that identifiable tainted teachers cannot sit for the test as per the direction of the Supreme Court,” Firdous Shamim, one of the lawyers representing the petitioners, said.
“The court directed the WBSSC to cancel the applications filed by these people since Jun 14 when the process started. The court ordered that the entire selection procedure must be concluded by December 31,” Shamim added.
The appointments of all 25,752 school teachers and non-teaching staff (Group-C and D) from the 2016 recruitment panel were cancelled by the bench of the Chief Justice of India on April 3 after a series of hearings.
On an appeal by the state, the top court said on April 17 that only the non-tainted teachers may be allowed to continue in service until December 31 but they must go through a fresh selection test in the meantime. Allowing age limit relaxation for these people, the court directed the state to start the process by May 31 and complete it in three months.
The Supreme Court did not grant any relief for the Group-C and Group-D non-teaching staff.
During the last hearing on July 1, the bench of justice Bhattacharyya observed that the Supreme Court directed that the fresh test should be held following the 2016 recruitment rules. The high court directed WBSSC on that day to submit its clarification during the next hearing, which was held on Monday.
Notification for the test was published on May 30. Before that, chief minister Mamata Banerjee announced that an additional 11,517 new posts for Class 9 and 10 teachers, 9,912 posts for Class 11 and 12 teachers and 1,571 vacancies at Group-C and D level have been created for the same selection process. With these, the tests will be conducted to fill up more than 44,000 posts.
The petitioners moved the bench of justice Bhattacharyya alleging that tainted teachers were being given an opportunity to get their jobs back in violation of the Supreme Court order.
They also objected to the WBSSC altering the weightage criteria for different components in the selection process. The commission has earmarked 10 marks each for ‘prior teaching experience’ and ‘classroom demonstration.’ This is a major deviation from the rules under which the 2016 tests were held, the petitioners said.
“The high court, however, did not pass any order on the weightage criteria or any other aspect of the selection process. It only said that the Supreme Court has clearly directed that only non-tainted teachers can sit for the test,” Shamim said.
The state’s lawyers argued before the bench on Monday that the alleged tainted teachers were being penalised for a second time since they had already lost their jobs. The court did not take this argument into consideration.
Neither education minister Bratya Basu nor any WBSSC official commented on Monday’s order till evening.
Mehboob Alam, one of the petitioners, said: “The order is a testimony to the fact that genuine candidates were victimised. Only the WBSSC can identify the tainted recruits but it hasn’t done so till now.”
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)’s former state unit president and Union minister of state for education Sukanta Majumdar welcomed Monday’s order. “The court will never allow the corruption to continue,” he said.
The Trinamool Congress tried to defend the state and WBSSC. “Neither the state education department nor WBSSC is trying to protect the alleged tainted teachers. But how can one say for sure that all those to be labelled as tainted are actually tainted?” TMC spokesperson Kunal Ghosh said.
This is not the first time that the high court has passed a direction after the Supreme Court’s order in the bribe-for-job case.
On April 26, chief minister Mamata Banerjee announced monthly stipends of ₹25,000 and ₹20,000 for the jobless Group-C and D staff, respectively. The state labour department issued a notification saying the scheme would come into retrospective effect from April 1.
On June 26, the high court ordered an interim stay on this till September 26.
The alleged corruption hit headlines in May 2022 when the Calcutta high court ordered the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to probe the appointment of non-teaching staff (Group-C and D) and teaching staff by the West Bengal School Service Commission and the West Bengal Board of Secondary Education between 2014 and 2021 when TMC’s Partha Chatterjee was education minister. Many appointees allegedly paid bribes in the range of ₹5-15 lakh to get jobs after failing the selection tests.
The Enforcement Directorate (ED), which started a parallel probe, arrested Chatterjee in July 2022. ED filed charges against him, ex-primary education board president and legislator Manik Bhattacharya and 52 others in January this year.
