NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Monday directed the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) not to take any coercive action and stayed the CBI probe against West Bengal government officers in connection with the case in which the Calcutta High Court had cancelled 25,000 appointments of teaching and non-teaching staff.
The top court's three-judge bench, led by CJI DY Chandrachud and Justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra, passed the interim order after hearing the appeal filed by the West Bengal government.
The top court, however, refused to stay the Calcutta HC's order cancelling over 25,000 appointments made in 2016.
Taking a humanitarian approach, the SC-bench observed that taking away the jobs of over 25,000 people was a serious thing and that the beneficiaries of the fraud had to be identified.
The apex court wanted to know from the TMC-led government as to whether the matter could be segregated. "We see that 25,000 jobs taken away is a serious thing. Unless we see that the entire thing is fraught with fraud, who are the beneficiaries of the fraud?" the Court observed.
The top court also questioned the process of appointing those who were not on the panel, calling it "complete fraud," and fixed the matter for further hearing on May 6. "People who were not on the panel were recruited. This is complete fraud," CJI Chandrachud said.
While staying action against the officials of the West Bengal government who created the supernumerary posts, the Court said it will consider the matter next week on Monday.
It is to be noted that around 23 lakh candidates had appeared for the teacher recruitment examinations for 25,000 job vacancies in 2016.
It had been alleged before the Calcutta High Court that most candidates were given jobs after wrongly evaluating the Optical Mark Recognition (OMR) sheets.
The Calcutta HC, in its order on April 22, declared the State Level Selection Test (SLST) 2016 recruitment procedure "null and void" and had ordered the cancellation of all appointments made through the procedure in the government-sponsored and aided institutions in the state.
On April 24, the West Bengal government moved the Supreme Court by filing an appeal against the HC's order invalidating and cancelling the appointment of 25,753 teachers made by the state's School Service Commission (SSC) in state-run schools.
Challenging the Calcutta high court's order, the state government, in its appeal filed before the top court, said the HC cancelled the appointments "arbitrarily" and without any proper reasoning.
"The high court had erred in its order. It fails to appreciate the ramification of cancelling the entire selection process, leading to straightaway termination of teaching and non-teaching staff from service with immediate effect, without giving sufficient time to the petitioner state to deal with such an exigency, rendering the education system at a standstill," the state government's plea read.
The West Bengal teachers' scam involves the selection of assistant teachers for classes 9th–10th and 11th–12th and Group C (clerks) and D posts in the state. Candidates had to undergo a teacher eligibility test (TET), an interview, and a personality test. The selection of the teachers was based on a combination of their TET scores, academic marks, interview performance, and personality test results.
But the Calcutta HC cancelled the procedure after finding that due process was not followed in the teachers' appointment process. It had directed the CBI to investigate the case, including the matching of hard discs with the SSC database after the original OMR sheets were reportedly destroyed.
