WB school jobs row: SC to hear pleas challenging Calcutta HC verdict on Sept 24, details here
The SC will hear pleas challenging a Calcutta HC order that invalidated the appointment of 25,753 teachers and non-teaching staff in govt and aided schools.
The Supreme Court on Tuesday said it would hear on September 24 the pleas of the West Bengal government and others challenging a Calcutta High Court order that invalidated the appointment of 25,753 teachers and non-teaching staff in state government and aided schools.
A bench comprising Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud and Justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra said it may not be able to hear the batch of pleas, listed on Tuesday, due to the hearing of some other matters during the day.
"We will list it on September 24," the CJI said.
Earlier, the top court had said that it will hear the pleas on September 10 and granted last opportunity to the parties to file their responses to the petitions by August 16.
The bench had also asked the nodal counsel - Astha Sharma, who represents the state government, and Shalini Kaul, Partha Chatterjee and Shekhar Kumar - to prepare a common compilation of the records in electronic form and ensure that the judgments cited by the parties were part of one set of the PDF documents.
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The top court has been hearing 33 petitions on the high court's April 22 judgment on the matter.
The pleas challenging the order also include the one filed by the West Bengal government.
The top court on May 7 granted a major relief to teachers and non-teaching staff of West Bengal whose services were invalidated by the high court on the grounds of irregularities in the appointment process.
It, however, permitted the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to continue with its probe and said it could also investigate members of the state Cabinet, if needed.
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While granting the relief on the pleas, the bench had asked the CBI not to take any precipitative action such as arrest of any suspect during its investigation.
The top court, however, made it clear that the teachers and non-teaching staff whose appointments were cancelled would have to refund the salaries and other emoluments if it reached the conclusion that their recruitment was illegal.
It had said the issue that would merit closer analysis was whether tainted appointments could be segregated.
