School teachers and not teaching staff whose jobs were terminated as per directions of Calcutta High Court gather in Kolkata and write petitions to Supreme Court. | Photo Credit: DEBASISH BHADURI
The Supreme Court on April 29 asked if untainted appointments, among the nearly 24,000 made in 2016 by the West Bengal School Service Commission (WBSSC) to teaching and no-teaching posts in State schools, can be salvaged.
A Bench headed by Chief Justice of India D.Y. Chandrachud was hearing a petition filed by the State government against a Calcutta High Court order to terminate 23,123 teaching and non-teaching staffers en bloc.
The State government had argued that such a move would drastically affect students and put school education in the State in a quandary, that too, at the beginning of the new academic year. The education system itself may come to a standstill.
Though the Supreme Court declined to immediately stay the High Court order, it posted the case for further hearing on Monday.
“The question is whether, on the basis of material available, is it possible to segregate valid and invalid appointments and who are the beneficiaries of the fraud. We see those 25,0000 jobs taken away is a serious thing. Unless we see that the entire thing is fraught with fraud,” the Chief Justice observed.
Meanwhile, the Bench asked the CBI to hold its hand in an investigation into a State government decision to create conditional supernumerary posts to accommodate the teachers whose appointments were allegedly irregular.
The State had argued that even the CBI report had alleged irregularities in the recruitment of only a little over 4,000 appointments. Neither the SSC nor the CBI had ever indicated that the entire recruitment process was tainted.
The SSC had held the selection process in 2016 for assistant teachers for classes nine to 12 and non-teaching staff.
