In the midst of a high-decibel election campaign, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and her Trinamool Congress suffered a huge blow as Calcutta High Court ordered the termination of approximately 26,000 jobs for a scam in which the former State Education Minister and a host of party leaders are in CBI and ED custody. “Fraud perpetrated and perpetuated is deep and pervasive,” the Court observed.
The Calcutta High Court on Monday declared “null and void” the appointments of 25, 753 individuals made in 2016 –teachers and group-C and group-D category staff. It also instructed the Central Bureau of Investigation to continue with the probe into the irregularities in appointments of teaching and non-teaching staff through 2016 State-level test in West Bengal Government-sponsored and aided schools in the Education Department under the Mamata Banerjee Government.
The Division Bench comprising Justice Debangshu Basak and Justice Shabbar Rashidi ordered all those whose jobs were cancelled to reimburse all the emoluments they had received in their period of service along with 12 percent interest.
The Court ordered the School Service Commission to start the appointment process afresh.
In its 282-page order, the Division Bench detailed the 17 ways in which the illegal appointments were made.
“The appointments were made by manipulation of the Optical Mark Recognition (OMR) sheets. Candidates who were not empanelled were appointed, appointments were made after the panel expired and rankings were also manipulated. All the appointments have been cancelled,” said Ferdous Shamim, advocate for many of the unsuccessful candidates who have been waging a relentless battle for justice for the past eight years. The verdict – in just one of the many cases of corruption in Bengal – comes just days ahead of the second phase of the Lok Sabha elections.
More than 23 lakh candidates had appeared for the State Level Selection Test-2016 (SLST) for 24,640 vacant posts. However, a total of 25,753 appointment letters were issued against the vacancies, said Shamim. In its order, the Bench said: “Documents placed on record suggest that the State Government, at the level of the Cabinet had approved creation of the supernumerary posts to accommodate the persons who had received employment illegally in the selection process.” “State Government has accepted that there were widespread illegalities in the selection process and that the numbers of persons who received appointments illegally could not be determined with exactitude. They had resolved to create supernumerary posts to accommodate the illegal appointees. In other words, the State has resolved to expend taxpayers’ money to accord sanction to an employment secured dishonestly,” the Bench wrote in its order.
It directed the CBI to undertake steps to interrogate those involved in such an illegality.
The bench also directed the CBI to undertake further investigation in respect of the appointment process, and submit a report in three months.
The Division Bench also rejected a prayer by some appellants for a stay on the order.
Moments after the High Court order, hundreds of school job aspirants waiting outside its premises rejoiced, as many broke into tears.
“We had been waiting for this day. After years of struggle on the streets, justice has finally been delivered,” one of them said.
The Division Bench, formed by the Chief Justice of the High Court on a direction of the Supreme Court, had extensively heard numerous petitions and appeals relating to the selection of candidates for appointment by the SSC in the categories of teachers of classes 9, 10, 11 and 12 and group-C and D staffers through the SLST-2016.
Hearing in the matters concluded on March 20 and judgement was reserved by the Bench.
On writ petitions by some candidates who appeared in SLST-2016, but did not get jobs, a single bench presided by Justice Abhijit Gangopadhyay had ordered CBI investigation into alleged irregularities in the recruitment process which culminated in today’s order.