The Calcutta High Court has cancelled the appointment of nearly 26,000 primary school jobs, just before the election. This has put the Trinamool Congress in a quandary. However, there seems to be more to the story than has already been said.
By Sujit Bhar
Is it possible to observe India’s judicial procedure as a completely compartmentalised system, impervious to political and social developments on the ground, especially just before a major set of elections? If we consider the country’s social fabric, and its next-door neighbour, the law enforcement machinery, including the judiciary, there are bound to be humane overlaps.
When we consider the case of pushing Delhi chief minister in jail just before elections at the insistence of the Enforcement Directorate, or the Calcutta High Court’s cancelling the appointment of nearly 26,000 primary school jobs, also before the elections, it seems the law has been taking its own course.
At the same time, when a sitting judge of the Calcutta High Court publicly expresses partisan political views, then quits his job, joins a political party, stands for election and continues vomiting bile on public forums, should not there be a system in place that can look back at the activities of that judge—especially into cases he handled before he showed his true colours—and assume that, possibly, some acts of omission and commission may have happened?
This man, Abhijit Gangopadhyay, a former judge of the Calcutta High Court, had been the person who had been handling the West Bengal School Service Commission (WBSSC) appointments scam. The case was not taken away from this man because he joined politics, but because of his objectionable behaviour that did not go down well with the apex court. His acts definitely lowered the prestige and hit at the integrity of the Supreme Court bench (acts that included a rather biased and damaging interview to the media) and also because of his openly hitting out at a brother judge.
The Supreme Court did not find this man fit enough to handle the case anymore. The top court had advised the Chief Justice of the Calcutta High Court, Justice TS Sivagnanam, to form a division bench and hand over the case documents and the case to it. This bench, comprising Justices Debangsu Basak and Md Shabbar Rashidi, has now delivered its verdict. Somewhat unfortunately, it has come just at the doorstep of a high tension election.
The High Court bench said the school teachers were recruited illegally after submitting blank OMR sheets and ordered that these teachers must return their salaries within four weeks. District magistrates have been tasked with collecting the money from these teachers, including a 12% interest. However, the Court has made an exception in its order, ensuring that one of the appointees, Soma Das, who is undergoing cancer treatment, retains her job on humanitarian grounds.
Some sources say that the illegal appointees numbered 5,000, but the entire appointee group has been penalised.
The bench, formed on a Supreme Court direction, has also ordered the CBI to further probe the appointment process and submit a report within three months. It has also asked WBSSC to begin a fresh appointment process.
CORRUPTION INSTITUTIONALISED
Here comes the crunch. The Trinamool Congress-led government, headed by Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, has most certainly made corruption its mainstay for feeding its many cadres and councillors and MLAs, as well as to feed the government’s insatiable greed. It is true that land-grab and extortion is rampant, and scams are a dime a dozen. Of these, the school recruitment scam of 2016, involving 25,753 appointees, was a big whammy.
Several Trinamool Congress (TMC) leaders, including former state education minister Partha Chatterjee, and former officials are already in jail in connection with the teacher recruitment case. Rupees 56 crore in cash had been found at a flat owned by Chatterjee’s girlfriend and these have become common knowledge. It is also common knowledge that much of the funds coming into TMC coffers have dubious origins, at the cost of the common man’s suffering.
This happened because of the lack of any new industry in the state, specifically because the government refuses to let go of land it can extort from and also because it refuses to stop the extortion racket that has almost become commonplace.
However, having said that, one must also accept that it is possible that the illegalities may not have extended to all the appointees. It is possible that the previous judge (Gangopadhyay), through some sheer overreach, had designed the case file in a way that a verdict might generate dissention amid TMC supporters. It was pretty early that Gangopadhyay had decided to join the party that he ultimately did. He has even admitted that the party had been in touch with him even while he was a sitting judge of the Calcutta High Court. Is it not possible for a person like that to make unfavourable adjustments?
If adjustments had been made, then maybe there have been some fairly appointed teachers who were clinging onto this job, within the dire financial condition of the state, trying to put food on the table of a starving family.
Somewhere down the line, this one-size-fits-all decision may not wash if one has to accept that the law should take its course, whatever the social metrics are.
That the TMC is a corrupt party is beyond question. However, corruption has been institutionalised across the length and breadth of India. And this also includes the main opposition party in the state. There is probably some sense in allowing the entire case history, as arranged by Gangopadhyay, a complete re-read. That process should have taken time.
OVER TO THE TOP COURT
As expected, WBSSC Chairman Siddharth Majumder has said that the WBSSC will challenge the High Court order in the Supreme Court.
Meanwhile, Mamata Banerjee has said that BJP leaders are “influencing the judiciary and the judgments”. She referred to a recent prediction by BJP leader Suvendu Adhikari, who had said a political “explosion” was awaited. Mamata said: “He predicted an explosion. What is the explosion? Snatching the jobs of 26,000 people and pushing them towards death? How did they know what the court will rule if they did not write the judgment?”
It must be recalled that it was Adhikari who had guided Gangopadhyay out of the court and towards the BJP and onto the election plank from the Tamluk constituency. The two are pretty close.
Now the verdict has had a political fallout. The state BJP has said on social media: “The High Court has cancelled about 24,000 SSC recruitments from 2016, CBI can take anyone into custody. A smile has appeared on the faces of the deserving candidates. Now it’s time for the nephew and his aunt to go. #TMCExposed.”
Mamata’s nephew is Abhishek Banerjee, the virtual No. 2 in the state government.
Over 23 lakh candidates had appeared for the State Level Selection Test-2016 for 24,640 vacant posts while 25,753 appointment letters were issued against the vacancies, according to the lawyer for some of the petitioners. This included posts of teachers of classes 9, 10, 11 and 12 and group-C and D staffers.
The Calcutta High Court last year dismissed panels set up by the WBSCC in 2016 and cancelled the appointment of 36,000 untrained primary teachers. The figure was later modified to 32,000.
The Supreme Court’s view and verdict is eagerly awaited. While the corruption has been proved, should that necessarily lead to an en masse laying off of a large number of appointees? Possibly, a fair view would be to wait for the CBI to finish its investigation and issue an order thereafter.