Teachers and Staff in Limbo as SC Reviews West Bengal SSC Fraud Case

Agencies, January 15, 2025, Kolkata: The Supreme Court of India will resume hearing the high-stakes case concerning alleged irregularities in the West Bengal School Service Commission (SSC) recruitment process on January 27. The matter, which has captivated national attention, involves widespread allegations of corruption in the appointment of over 25,000 teaching and non-teaching staff.

Chief Justice of India Sanjiv Khanna, leading the division bench, underscored the Calcutta High Court’s earlier stance, which highlighted the systemic fraud, declaring it impossible to differentiate between genuine and manipulated appointments.

The controversy stems from the SSC’s engagement of M/s NYSA for the 2016 State Level Selection Test (SLST), which was later found to have outsourced scanning of Optical Mark Recognition (OMR) sheets to a third party, Data Scantech, without approval. This raised serious questions of procedural violations under Articles 14 and 16 of the Indian Constitution, which safeguard equality in public employment.

In April 2024, the Calcutta High Court annulled the appointments of 25,753 individuals, citing widespread fraud involving former education minister Partha Chatterjee and senior officials. The judgment stated that the manipulation was so pervasive that attempts to identify genuine appointees would be futile, leaving no option but to cancel all appointments. The Mamata Banerjee-led state government challenged this decision in the Supreme Court in May 2024, which subsequently issued a stay on the High Court’s order.

During the latest hearing, senior advocates Prashant Bhushan, Kapil Sibal, Shadan Farasat, Menaka Guruswamy, and Meenakshi Arora argued on behalf of candidates and employees claiming to be untainted by the alleged scam. They emphasized the lack of evidence against many appointees and urged the court to distinguish between deserving and manipulated candidates.

Bhushan highlighted that his clients were unaware of the proceedings and questioned the cancellation of their appointments. Sibal and Farasat stressed that the evidence, such as manipulated OMR sheets, was inconclusive, and Guruswamy argued that employees with clean records should not suffer unjustly. However, the CJI reiterated the High Court’s observation that the pervasive nature of the fraud made such differentiation impossible.

In a related development, senior advocate Dushyant Dave, representing Group-C employees, criticized the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) for conducting what he called a "casual investigation." He alleged that the inquiry lacked depth and was initiated on the directive of a former Calcutta High Court judge, now a BJP MP. Dave argued that a thorough investigation would have clarified the extent of the corruption and the identities of those involved.

Senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi, appearing for another group of staff, pointed out that the original OMR sheets had not been recovered and only scanned copies were available. These, he said, were not sufficient to conclusively implicate all the affected appointees. He also noted that the Calcutta High Court had prematurely delivered its verdict without considering a pending report from the Central Forensic Science Laboratory (CFSL).

The Supreme Court, acknowledging the complexities of the case and its potential impact on public employment, has deferred further hearings to January 27. The upcoming session is expected to be critical in determining the fate of thousands of employees and candidates whose lives remain in limbo.