Top Education Dept Officials Get Contempt Notice

SNS | KOLKATA | 12 APRIL 2025:  Several petitioners in the West Bengal School Service Commission (WBSSC) recruitment scam have sent contempt notices to top officials of the state education department, including its Principal Secretary Vinod Kumar, Commissioner Anip Sengupta, WBSSC Chairman Siddhartha Majumder, and West Bengal Board of Secondary Education (WBBSE) President Ramanuj Ganguly. The notices seek to know why the concerned authorities are allowing teachers—whose appointments have been invalidated by the Supreme Court—to continue attending schools.

Lawyers Firdous Shamim and Gopa Biswas, on behalf of Babita Sarkar, Setabuddin, Nasrin Khatoon, Lakshmi Tunga, and Abdul Goni Ansari—the main petitioners who had moved the Calcutta High Court (HC) three years ago alleging high-level irregularities in the recruitment process of assistant teachers, and Group C and D employees in government-aided schools—sent the notices a few days ago to the officials of the education department.

“Notices have been sent to the education secretary, commissioner, WBSSC chairman, and WBBSE president because many of the invalidated teachers and other non-teaching staff are going to schools despite the Supreme Court invalidating their appointments,” Mr. Shamim told The Statesman on Saturday.

The School Service Commission is yet to make the OMR sheets of the recruitment test public, though the High Court had directed the state to release the OMRs. Upholding the directive of the HC, the apex court in its judgment also asked the state government to release the OMRs. “The state education department and commission are violating the court orders,” he added.

It may be recalled that the appointment of Ankita Adhikari, daughter of Paresh Adhikari—former Minister of State for Education in the state cabinet—was cancelled by the HC after Babita Sarkar challenged her appointment as an assistant teacher. Later, Babita also lost her job following an HC order.

The Supreme Court last week upheld the dismissal of 25,752 teaching and non-teaching staff recruited to government-aided schools. Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, while addressing a meeting with aggrieved teachers at Netaji Indoor Stadium on 7 April, had advised them to attend classes. Following her advice, many jobless teachers and non-teaching employees resumed attending schools.

Neither Bikash Bhavan (education department headquarters at Salt Lake) nor the WBSSC has issued any official notification so far directing the teachers to go to schools.