The West Bengal government on Wednesday filed a Special Leave Petition before the Supreme Court against the Calcutta High Court’s order invalidating almost 24,000 teaching and non-teaching jobs following the 2016 SSC Recruitment process.
The development took place after the Calcutta High Court on Monday ordered the cancellation of all appointments of teachers, Group C and D employees across government and aided schools across West Bengal made through the recruitment process of the State Level Selection Test-2016 (SLST).
The vacancies that were filled up as a result of the 2016 SSC Recruitment process were challenged due to the cash-for-jobs recruitment scam. Over 23 lakh candidates had appeared for the 2016 SLST for 24,640 vacant posts.
Delivering the order, the division bench comprising justices Debangsu Basak and Md Shabbar Rashidi asked the CBI to submit a report within the next three months. It also asked the West Bengal School Service Commission (SSC) to initiate a fresh recruitment process.
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What is West Bengal SSC ‘scam’?
The scam came to the limelight after the CBI arrested former state Education Minister Partha Chatterjee and several officials from the West Bengal School Service Commission over the suspicion of their involvement in the illegal teacher recruitment in July, 2022.
Back in 2014, West Bengal announced the hiring of teachers for government schools through the SLST process, which began in 2016 when Partha Chatterjee was the education minister in the state. However, some aspirants went to the Calcutta High Court with complaints about the hiring process.
They claimed that some candidates with lower scores ranked higher on the merit list. It was also claimed that there are several people who were not on the merit list but still got job offers.
In 2016, the West Bengal government told the SSC to hire 13,000 Group-D employees for state schools. However, by 2019, the authority responsible for the hiring process had expired. Petitions were submitted in the High Court that 25 illegal appointments took place through SSC. The number, however, increased to 500 in subsequent petitions.
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