NEW DELHI: In a major setback to the Mamta Banerjee government, the Supreme Court on Thursday upheld the Calcutta HC's decision to cancel 25,753 teachers' appointments in West Bengal government schools and termed the entire selection process as "vitiated by manipulation and fraud".
A two-judge bench of the apex court, led by the Chief Justice Sanjiv Khanna and Justice PV Sanjiv Kumar, refused to interfere with the Calcutta High Court's decision.
The top court passed the judgment on Thursday on hearing an appeal filed by the West Bengal state government against the Calcutta HC's order invalidating and cancelling the appointment of 25,753 teachers made by the state's SSC in state-run government schools.
"We have gone through the facts. Regarding the findings of this case, the entire selection process is vitiated by manipulation and fraud, credibility and legitimacy are denuded. No reason to interfere. Tainted candidates must be terminated and appointments were resultant of cheating and thus fraud," the top court said in its judgment.
While finding no ground or reason to interfere with the decision of the High Court, the apex court said that the fresh selection process can also have relaxations for untainted candidates.
However the court granted relief that the candidates already appointed need not hand over the salary given so far, and ordered that the fresh selection process should be completed within 3 months.
Earlier in April 2024, the Calcutta HC cancelled the appointment of 25,753 employees (both teaching and non-teaching) to State-aided schools. "There is no clarity on which of the 23 lakh answer sheets were evaluated and therefore, ordered re-evaluation of all answer sheets," the Hc had said, in its ruling.
Challenging this verdict, WB govt on April 24, 2024, had moved the top Court by filing an appeal against the Calcutta HC's order invalidating and cancelling the appointment of 25,753 teachers made by the state's SSC in state-run schools.
The WB state government, in its appeal filed before the top court, said the HC cancelled the appointments "arbitrarily", and without any proper reasoning.
Earlier, in one of the hearings, the apex court had termed the alleged recruitment scam in West Bengal as "systemic fraud", and said that the authorities were duty-bound to maintain the digitised records pertaining to the appointment of 25 753 teachers and non-teaching staff.
The top court had earlier observed that the public job is so scarce. "Nothing remains if the faith of the public goes. This is systemic fraud. Public jobs are extremely scarce today and are looked at for social mobility. What remains in the system if their appointments are also maligned? People will lose faith, how do you countenance this?" the SC had observed.
