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Bengal govt, WBSSC challenge Calcutta HC order barring tainted teachers from taking recruitment test
WBSSC filed a petition before the Calcutta HC challenging order that barred recruits from the 2016 panel from appearing for the fresh selection test.
The West Bengal government and the state school service commission (WBSSC) on Tuesday filed a petition before a Calcutta high court division challenging Monday's single bench order that barred identifiable tainted recruits from the 2016 panel from appearing for the fresh selection test for government school teachers, lawyers aware of the development said.
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 Sanjeev Khanna on April 3. On an appeal by the state, the CJI's bench 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.
Notification for the test was published by WBSSC on May 30. However, it did not specify that only non-tainted teachers can appear for it.
After hearing petitions filed by a section of the jobless teachers, Justice Saugata Bhattacharyya ordered on Monday that identifiable tainted teachers cannot sit for the test as per the direction of the Supreme Court. The judge directed WBSSC to cancel the applications filed by these people since Jun 14, when the process started.
"Paragraph 49 of the Supreme Court's (April 17) order said candidates not found to be specifically tainted can sit for the tests. We will move a contempt petition before the Supreme Court against WBSSC," lawyer Bikram Banerjee, one of the lawyers representing the jobless teachers, said.
The petitioners moved the bench of justice Bhattacharyya alleging that tainted teachers were being given an opportunity to get their jobs back.
Trinamool Congress Lok Sabha member and senior lawyer Kalyan Banerjee, who appeared for the WBSSC, told the single 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 his argument into consideration.
"How many times can a person be penalised?" Banerjee told the media after Monday's hearing.
During a 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.
Some shortlisted candidates from 2016, who also filed petitions before the bench of justice Bhattacharyya, alleged that WBSSC violated the 2016 recruitment rules by altering the weightage criteria for different components in the ongoing 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.
"Since the single bench did not pass any order on the weightage criteria or any other aspect of the selection process the petitioners moved a division bench on Tuesday," Firdous Shamim, another lawyer representing the petitioners, said.
Neither education minister Bratya Basu nor any WBSSC official commented on the petitions till Tuesday evening.
Targeting the ruling party, former state Congress president Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury said: "After taking fat bribes from job seekers TMC is now using taxpayers' money to fight court cases. TMC wants to help the tainted teachers because these people won't spare them."
The alleged corruption hit the headlines in May 2022 when the Calcutta high court ordered the Central Bureau of Investigation to probe the appointment of non-teaching staff (Group-C and D) and teaching staff by the WBSSC 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, which started a parallel probe, arrested Chatterjee in July 2022. The ED filed charges against him, ex-primary education board president and legislator Manik Bhattacharya and 52 others in January this year.
