WB recruitment scam: SC lets over 13,000 ‘untainted’ teachers continue service
The court made it clear that the current order will not create any special rights or advantage to the untainted teachers in the fresh recruitment process.
The Supreme Court on Thursday allowed more than 13,000 ‘untainted’ assistant teachers, who lost their jobs in the West Bengal teacher recruitment scam, to remain in service, even as it instructed the state to issue advertisements for a fresh recruitment process by May 31. The court further ordered the completion of the entire recruitment process by December 31 this year.
The order was passed by a bench of Chief Justice of India (CJI) Sanjiv Khanna and justice Sanjay Kumar on an application moved by such teachers to continue till the end of the academic year or till the time the fresh recruitment process is completed.
“We are inclined to accept the prayer in the present application in so far as it relates to the assistant teachers of Classes IX-X and Classes XI-XIII,” the bench said.
The court passed the order subject to the West Bengal government, the West Bengal School Service Commission (WBSSC) and the West Bengal Board of Primary Education submitting an undertaking to issue advertisements for fresh recruitments for assistant teachers and Group C and D employees in state-run schools by end of May this year and complete the recruitment process by December 31, 2025.
“The advertisement for fresh recruitment shall be published on or before May 31, 2025, and the examination and entire recruitment process shall be completed by December 31, 2025. The state, Board and WBSSC shall file affidavit on or before May 31 enclosing copy of advertisement and the schedule so as to ensure completion of recruitment process by December 31, 2025,” the court said.
Appearing for the West Bengal government, senior advocate Kapil Sibal told the court that the state will complete the recruitment process by December. Even the WB Board of Primary Education and the WBSSC informed the court that four separate advertisements will be issued and within one week, the process for fresh recruitment will begin.
The order will apply only to assistant teachers as the bench noted that large scale bungling was found in the Group C and D recruitments. While the tainted candidates in the assistant teacher category were about 8% (3,600 out of 17,206 recommended names) the taint was about 50% in the Group C and D post recruitments.
However, the court made it clear that the current order will not create any special rights or advantage to the untainted teachers in the fresh recruitment process.
On April 3, the top court struck down the entire recruitment process carried out by the WBSSC in 2016 as it was found to be vitiated by fraud and manipulation. While the court admitted that there are tainted and untainted candidates who made it through the selection process, the court was not willing to segregate them and directed termination of all teachers and non-teaching staff who benefitted as a result of the fraudulent recruitment process.
Earlier, the Calcutta HC struck down the recruitments on April 22, 2024, against which the state government had come in appeal to the top court. Finding no grounds to interfere with the HC order, the top court made a damning indictment against the WBSSC as it said, “In our opinion, this is a case wherein the entire selection process has been vitiated and tainted beyond resolution. Manipulations and frauds on a large scale, coupled with the attempted cover-up, have dented the selection process beyond repair and partial redemption. The credibility and legitimacy of the selection are denuded.”
There were three categories of candidates who were before the court. Those who were tainted, the ones who were untainted and the ones who were previously employed with a government department before joining under the 2016 recruitment. The court applied the same rule to all candidates.
Days after the order, the court set aside a part of the Calcutta HC order which ordered a probe into the Cabinet decision taken by the West Bengal government in May 2022 to create supernumerary posts for accommodating the candidates.
The court held that no criminality could be attached to the Cabinet decision of May 5, 2022, as this decision had got the approval of the Governor and was made subject to the final decision of the high court.
The case related to teacher recruitment scam is already pending trial before a West Bengal court in which allegations are that the recruitments were made based on monetary considerations. In this connection, the CBI arrested former state education minister Partha Chatterjee, who also faces Enforcement Directorate probe after a large sum of unaccounted cash and jewellery was recovered from his associates.
The bench had clarified that its findings will not influence the ongoing criminal proceedings.
The WBSSC conducted the recruitment test in 2016. It was alleged before the high court that those who got appointments did not qualify on merit. The CBI probe ordered by the high court found that some candidates who submitted blank OMR sheets got selected while in some cases, those who did not perform well, jumped in ranks over the meritorious candidates.
Besides Partha Chatterjee, CBI has arrested other TMC leaders and functionaries including Manik Bhattacharya, Jiban Krishna Saha and Kuntal Ghosh.
