Kolkata: The Supreme Court questioned the possibility of segregating untainted appointments out of the over 25,000 appointments made by the West Bengal School Service Commission (WB SSC) to teaching and non-teaching posts in 2016. The Calcutta High Court had directed the cancellation of all these appointments due to fraud.
A bench comprising Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud, Justice JB Pardiwala, and Manoj Misra heard the petitions filed by the State of West Bengal, the SSC, and certain affected employees challenging the April 22 judgment delivered by the Calcutta High Court. The petitions were posted for further hearing next Monday.
While the bench declined the petitioners' request for a stay of the High Court's direction to cancel the appointments at present, it stayed the High Court's direction to the CBI to undertake further investigation. The CBI was directed to probe the State Government's approval of supernumerary posts to accommodate illegal appointments and to interrogate the individuals involved.
Chief Justice DY Chandrachud remarked, "Look at how it's done...OMR sheet completely destroyed, mirror images not there, people not in the panel are recruited...this is a complete fraud."
Senior Advocate Rakesh Dwivedi questioned the High Court's decision to set aside all appointments when irregularities were found only in 8,000 names. Senior Advocate Jaideep Gupta, representing the School Service Commission, argued that the High Court erred in annulling all appointments when untainted appointments could have been segregated. Similar arguments were made by Senior Advocates Dushyant Dave and Mukul Rohatgi.
The State argued that instead of segregating valid appointments from invalid ones, the High Court invalidated the entire 2016 selection process. It contended that this decision would affect around 25,000 teaching and non-teaching staff in the State.
The State further argued that the High Court solely relied on oral arguments without supporting affidavits. It also claimed that the High Court's decision would lead to a significant shortage of staff in schools and adversely affect students, especially with the new academic session approaching.
Brief Details Of The Impugned Order
In a detailed order spanning more than 280 pages, a division bench of Justices Debangsu Basak and Md Shabbar Rashidi invalidated the entire panel of the 2016 SSC Recruitment. The Court found irregularities with OMR sheets and ordered the state to conduct fresh examinations.
The Court directed the appointees, who were fraudulently appointed, to return the salaries they had received. It observed that the entire recruitment panel of 2016 was tainted due to irregularities with the OMR sheets, many of which were found to be blank. The Court also found that many appointees had been hired after the 2016 recruitment panel had expired by submitting blank OMR sheets.
In light of these findings, the Court ordered an investigation into those responsible for the fraud and disposed of the pleas by canceling the entire 2016 SSC Recruitment Panel.
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