School jobs row: SC to hear in Sept plea of state challenging Calcutta HC order

PTI, New Delhi, Aug 6, 2024 :  The Supreme Court on Tuesday said it would hear in September 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 headed by Chief Justice DY Chandrachud granted time to the parties to file their responses to the petitions by August 16.

“Time for filing the written submissions for the petitioners in the West Bengal group of matters will be extended till next Friday,” Chief Justice Chandrachud said.

The bench, also comprising Justice JB Pardiwala and Justice Manoj Misra, asked the nodal counsel 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.

The top court, which has been hearing 33 petitions on the high court’s April 22 judgment on the matter, has now fixed a final hearing in September.

On July 16, it granted the last opportunity to file the responses to pleas challenging the high court order.

The pleas challenging the order also include the one filed by the West Bengal government.

The bench was informed that the response affidavits had not been filed by many parties. The West Bengal government had also not filed its reply in cases where it was made a respondent.

The bench had also issued a slew of procedural directions and appointed four lawyers as nodal counsel while asking them to file a common compilation in electronic form after getting details from the lawyers of various parties.

It had appointed lawyers Astha Sharma, who represents the state government, and Shalini Kaul, Partha Chatterjee and Shekhar Kumar as nodal counsel.

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.

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.

If it is possible then it would be wrong to set aside the entirety of the process, the bench had said.

The top court had also termed the alleged recruitment scam in West Bengal as “systemic fraud” and said the state authorities were duty-bound to maintain the digitised records on the appointment of 25,753 teachers and non-teaching staff.

“Public jobs are so scarce … Nothing remains if the faith of the public goes. This is systemic fraud. Public jobs are extremely scarce today and are looked at for social mobility. What remains in the system if their appointments are also maligned? People will lose faith, how do you countenance this?” Chief Justice Chandrachud had asked the lawyers representing the state government.

Besides cancelling the appointments, the high court had also directed the CBI to probe into the appointment process and submit a report in three months.

More than 23 lakh candidates appeared for the State Level Selection Test (SLST)-2016 for 24,640 vacant posts. A total of 25,753 appointment letters were issued against the 24,640 vacancies.

The high court had instructed those appointed outside the officially available 24,640 vacancies, appointed after the expiry of the official recruitment date, and those who submitted blank OMR sheets but obtained appointments to return all remunerations and benefits received by them with 12 per cent per annum interest within four weeks.