The Supreme Court today ordered the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to not take any precipitative action against the officials of West Bengal government in the matter pertaining to alleged illegal recruitment of teaching and non-teaching staff by the West Bengal School Service Commission (WBSSC).
A bench comprising Chief Justice of India (CJI) DY Chandrachud with Justice JB Pardiwala and Justice Manoj Misra, however, did not stay the Calcutta High Court decision to cancel about 24,000 appointments made in 2016.
The top court stated that it understands that taking away the jobs of around 25,000 persons was a serious matter but the beneficiaries of the fraud have to be identified. Asking if the matter can be segregated, the bench remarked that 25,0000 jobs taken away is a serious thing unless the entire thing is fraught with fraud and who are the beneficiaries of the fraud.
The court further questioned the appointment of those who were not on the panel and called it complete fraud. The apex court while staying actions against the state government officials who created the supernumerary posts, the bench said it will consider the matter next week on Monday.
The Calcutta High Court, while holding the recruitment invalid, had directed all the 24,000 candidates to return the salaries they received after being illegally recruited. The West Bengal government in its Special Leave Petition (SLP) before the apex court, alleged that the High Court on the basis of oral submissions and in absence of any affidavit on record had arbitrarily cancelled the appointments.
The plea stated that the same was done in utter disregard of the fact that it will lead to a huge vacuum in the schools. It mentioned that the High Court failed to appreciate the ramification of cancelling the entire selection process leading to straightaway termination of 23,123 teaching and non- teaching staff from service with immediate effect, without giving sufficient time to the state to deal with such an exigency, rendering the education system at a stand-still.
During the proceedings, Senior Advocate Dushyant Dave contended that the recruitment process had started in 2016 and the jobs were given to the appointees in 2018. He also said that the first plea was taken in 2021 which was taken up by Justice Abhijit Gangopadhyay of the High Court who resigned and later joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
Meanwhile, Senior Advocate Mukul Rohtagi also said that the High Court has thrown away all the jobs after relying upon a certificate by an accused. He added that the material given by him has been relied upon like a gospel.
Mentioning that a single judge terminated this, Senior Advocate Mukul Rohtagi stated that there has to be an inquiry at least. He added that there are 4 people dependent per job and there are 24,000 jobs here.
Senior Advocate Rakesh Dwivedi argued that the matter involving the Cabinet and ministers could be sent to jail during the election period. Subsequently, Senior Advocate Neeraj Kishan Kaul said that any one involved in creating the cabinet note can be taken into custody, adding that the impugned order does not deal with the supernumerary posts.
The scam in question relates to various illegal recruitments allegedly made in the primary and secondary schools across the state during the recruitment process of 2016. More than 23 lakh candidates had appeared in the examinations for the 24,000 job vacancies in 2016. In the High Court, it had been alleged that most candidates were given jobs after wrongly evaluating the OMR Sheets.
The bench of Justices Debangsu Basak and Md Shabbar Rashidi had noted that there was no clarity which of the 23 lakh answer sheets were evaluated properly and hence, ordered re-evaluation of all the sheets of the recruitment entrance exams. It had further directed CBI to continue with the investigation into the recruitment scam.