SSC scam: Calcutta High Court cancels appointments of 842 Group C staff

Judge aghast at how 57 were recruited surreptitiously even though they weren't recommended by the service commission

Sougata Mukhopadhyay   |   TT  |  Calcutta   |   10.03.23  : In yet another significant development in the ever-deepening pit of recruitment corruption in Bengal schools, the  Calcutta High Court directed the cancellation of appointments of 842 Group C employees, the order taking the total number of job terminations to a staggering 3,371, including Groups C and D employees and teachers in standards IX and X.

On Friday, the  Bench of Justice Abhijit Gangopadhyay directed the state School Service Commission (SSC) to issue notice of withdrawal of appointment recommendations of 785 Group C candidates from the 2016 SLST exams, who were found to have received employment by means of manipulations in their Optical Marks Recognition (OMR) sheets, by 12 noon on Saturday. The judge also directed the state Secondary Education Board to formally cancel their appointments by 3 PM on that day.

But what left even the court astounded was the Commission’s declaration on affidavit that it never recommended the employment of another 57 Group C employees who were found to have been engaged across schools in various districts. The judge terminated the employment of these employees on Friday itself.

Referring to the former chairman of the SSC advisory committee who was arrested by the CBI in connection with recruitment corruption cases, Justice Gangopadhyay questioned: “How did these 57 people receive appointment? Was it Shanti Prasad Sinha who gave them the recommendation letters?”

Evidently, the said 57 employees were offered jobs in a surreptitious manner without them having to undergo the mandatory counseling process. This brings out a clear and additional dimension of the corruption which took place in the recruitment process, the court observed.

While the court directed stoppage of salaries of all the 842 employees and barred their entry inside their respective school premises or from getting access to any school documents with immediate effect, Gangopadhyay said he would later decide on whether the job losers needed to return salaries they earned during the course of their employment.

“It is on account of unbridled corruption in recruitment that qualified and deserving candidates are sitting on the streets today and are in pain. Their jobs were stolen from them. They are suffering because a section of Commission and state education department officials indulged in greed,” the judge observed during the course of the hearing on Friday.

“Those who received jobs fraudulently and are beneficiaries of the scam also cannot avoid responsibility,” he remarked.

The judge lashed out at the Board and called it “utterly incompetent” when the latter submitted that the Commission has not provided a district-wise break-up of the 57 employees currently employed without recommendation for it to act upon. “If the Commission does all your job, what will you do? Can’t you find that out for yourself?” the judge said.

The court directed the secondary education board to send appointment letters of all Group C staff who are currently employed to the SSC by 16 March and the Commission, in turn, would have to cross-verify those letters with its own OMR data and recommendations by 27 March for possible anomalies. The matter would be heard next on 29 March.

The court further directed the SSC and the Board to start filling up the newly-created vacancies from waitlisted candidates within the next 10 days and complete their counseling process by 25 March with the rider that the authorities concerned will have to scan and reject any candidate who may find a place in the waiting list by jumping ranks or by means of any other form of irregularity.

Gangopadhyay also directed the SSC to publish within 20 March the exact nature of anomalies in OMR sheets of all 3,478 Group C candidates from the 2016 SLST exams to which the Commission has already admitted to before the court.

Earlier the high court cancelled appointments of 1,911 Group D staff and 618 secondary level teachers who were illegally appointed through the SSC recruitment scam.