Supreme Court stays Calcutta High Court order quashing appointment of 25,753 teachers, non-teaching staff in West Bengal

Satya Prakash

New Delhi, May 7

The Supreme Court on Tuesday stayed a Calcutta High Court order quashing the appointment of 25,753 teachers and non-teaching staff in West Bengal in state-run and state-aided schools even as it allowed the CBI to go ahead with its probe, even against the state officials.

A three-judge Bench led by Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud, however, asked the CBI not to take any coercive action such as arresting a suspect during the probe into the appointments of teachers and non-teaching staff made by the School Service Commission (SSC).

The top court directed that the interim protection would continue provided that those found to have been appointed illegally and had continued as a consequence of its order shall undertake to refund the salary drawn by them, if the final decision went against them.

The Bench posted the matter for July 16.

The order came on petitions challenging the April 22 Calcutta High Court order invalidating the appointment of 25,753 teachers and non-teaching staff. The West Bengal government has challenged the high court order cancelling the appointments, terming it “arbitrary”.

Terming the scam in the appointment by SSC as a “systemic fraud”, the top court said the state authorities were duty-bound to maintain digitised records pertaining to the appointment of teachers and non-teaching staff.

“Public jobs are 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,” the CJI told the West Bengal government’s counsel.

The state government has nothing to show that relevant data was maintained by the authorities and asked about its availability, the Bench noted.

“Either you have the data or you do not have it…. You were duty-bound to maintain the documents in digitised form. Now, it is obvious that there is no data. You are unaware of the fact that your service provider has engaged another agency. You had to maintain supervisory control,” the Bench told the West Bengal government’s lawyers.