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Bengal job scam: Mamata urges HC not to cancel appointments
West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee on Tuesday appealed to the Calcutta high court — which has so far cancelled appointments of over 4,800 undeserving candidates in the alleged teachers’ recruitment scam — not to terminate services of people as they have families to look after.
West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee on Tuesday appealed to the Calcutta high court — which has so far cancelled appointments of over 4,800 undeserving candidates in the alleged teachers’ recruitment scam — not to terminate services of people as they have families to look after.
“This is not politics. You may not like me, my party or my government… If I have done any wrong and you slap me, I won’t mind,” Banerjee said while addressing the 150th birth anniversary celebrations of Sri Aurobindo at a city court campus.
Banerjee said corrective measures should be taken if “mistakes” were committed in the recruitment process, as she urged the high court to rethink its decisions to terminate the services while citing two people who allegedly died by suicide after losing jobs. “I will urge you (the high court) to rethink. Even yesterday, two people died by suicide in Jalpaiguri. If someone else did something wrong, why will these people suffer? If someone loses their job suddenly, how will they look after their family? Give that person a chance,” she said.
Banerjee said a re-examination can also be considered for such people. “If needed, allow them to take another test. We will prepare another setup as per the court’s order,” she added.
The high court has so far cancelled the appointments of 4,853 undeserving candidates who got jobs of teachers and non-teaching staff in various state-run schools between 2014 and 2021 using fraudulent means.
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), probing into the recruitment scam on the Calcutta high court’s orders, had earlier told the court that more than 8000 candidates got jobs using fraudulent means. The TMC has come under severe attack after its several leaders, including former minister Partha Chatterjee, were arrested in the case. Chatterjee was subsequently removed from the ruling TMC.
The opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) targeted the chief minister, alleging she as trying to shield the underserving candidates as they paid bribes to TMC leaders.
“The chief minister knows very well that if these undeserving candidates, who paid bribes to TMC leaders to get jobs, spill the beans she may lose the elections,” Sukanta Majumdar, BJP state president told reporters. “She feels bad for the undeserving candidates, but ignores the deserving candidates who have been protesting for two years.”
The Communist Party of India (Marxist) also attacked the TMC government, and sought an apology from the CM.
“People are losing their jobs because of the corrupt practices of the TMC. She (the CM) should step down after apologising. No one wants to slap her or hit her,” Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharya, CPI(M) MP and a lawyer who was fighting many of these cases in the court, told reporters.
