Supreme Court hears school jobs case: Entire hiring process was vitiated, say lawyers
Telegraph | 29 January 2025
The Supreme Court on Monday set February 10 for further hearing a batch of petitions related to Calcutta High Court’s April 2024 judgment quashing the recruitment of 23,123 teaching and non-teaching staff in Bengal because of alleged illegalities following a CBI probe.
A bench of Chief Justice Sanjiv Khanna and Justice Sanjay Kumar adjourned the matter after briefly hearing some counsel supporting the high court judgment.
During the hearing, the counsel appearing for some petitioners defended the high court judgment saying there were large-scale irregularities and malpractices committed in the process with the alleged active connivance of several powerful persons and vested interests.
“The entire selection process was vitiated because of the malpractice,” said one of the lawyers. “The state government wanted to protect the illegal appointments.”
The lawyers argued that the judgment should not be interfered with as the orders were passed after careful evaluation of material placed before the court that demonstrated alleged malpractices.
Earlier, on April 29, 2024, the apex court had stayed Calcutta High Court directing a CBI probe into the conduct of Bengal government officials for creating supernumerary posts to fill up the 25,000-odd teachers’ posts, but the top court had orally opined that prima facie, even those who were not in the panel were recruited.
The Supreme Court had passed the order while hearing Bengal government’s special leave petition assailing the high court order quashing the recruitment of 23,123 teaching and non-teaching staff on the ground that if not set aside, it would lead to a “huge vacuum in the state schools”, “rendering the education system at a stand-still”.
The Bengal government, and others, argued that the entire process should not have been set aside by the high court, even if there were irregularities in some appointments.
Though the Bengal government pleaded for a complete stay of the judgment, the Supreme Court had said it was only staying the portion of the high court order that had directed the CBI to probe the conduct of the government officials for creating the supernumerary posts.
On Monday, one point raised was that the majority of the untainted selected candidates, who were adversely impacted by the high court order, had crossed the permissible age limit to write competition exams as the hiring process under consideration was in 2016.
Advocate Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharyya, when asked by reporters about the apex court hearing, said: “Segregation is not possible because the entire (recruitment) process has been illegal. When the process is illegal, you cannot segregate the good from the bad. It is unfortunate that because of this, some deserving candidates have been impacted.”
“Those who had appeared for the exam then should be given a chance to appear for a fresh exam. If age is a barrier, remove that.”
Asked for a response to this, a protester in Calcutta scared of job loss, asked if Bhattacharyya himself would be able to clear his secondary exam if he were asked to write it again.