SC asks if untainted teacher appointments in Bengal can be saved
The Supreme Court on Monday asked if untainted appointments, among the nearly 24,000 made in 2016 by the West Bengal School Service Commission to teaching and noteaching posts in State schools, can be salvaged.
A Bench headed by Chief Justice of India D.Y. Chandrachud was hearing a petition led by the State government against a Calcutta High Court order to terminate 23,123 teaching and non-teaching sta¬ers en bloc. The 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
The State had argued that even the CBI report had alleged irregularities in the recruitment of only a little over 4,000 appointments
who are the beneciaries of the fraud. We see those 25,000 jobs taken away is a serious thing. Unless we see that the entire thing is fraught with fraud,” the Chief Justice observed.
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 9 to 12 and non-teaching sta¬.