Some of India’s top lawyers appearing before a division bench of the Chief Justice of India, Sanjiv Khanna, in the Supreme Court argued on Wednesday that none of their clients were involved in the alleged irregularities in the recruitment process of the school service commission.
“In all three cases I am appearing in, I am appearing for candidates against whom nothing wrong was found. So on what basis does our selection gets set aside? Even assuming Bansal (former Nysa employee Pankaj Bansal) hard disk is gospel truth, we are still totally untainted,” argued Prashant Bhushan, counsel for a group of candidates.
The school service commission (SSC) had appointed an agency, M/s NYSA, to scan and evaluate the OMR (Optical Mark Recognition) sheets of the 2016 state-level selection test through a closed-door tender process in violation of Articles 14 and 16 of the Constitution.
Article 14 deals with equality before laws and equal protection of laws, while Article 16 deals with equality of opportunity in matters of public employment.
The agency then engaged another agency, Data Scantech, to scan the OMR sheets (answer scripts).
Despite the scanning taking place at the SSC office, the commission later asserted that they neither engaged Data Scantech to scan the OMR sheets nor authorized NYSA to use Data Scantech or another agency for this task.
Last April, a division bench of the Calcutta high court had struck off the names of 25, 753 teachers and non-teaching staff from the payrolls of the state education department for alleged irregularities that involved the former Bengal education minister Partha Chatterjee and several officials of the state education department.
The Mamata Banerjee government had challenged the verdict in the apex court last May, which had issued a stay on the HC’s order.
Bhushan said, “After complete investigation, they say total manipulation figures total 3481-maybe, milord, more. But these are total instances of manipulation, of candidates who submitted blank OMR sheets. Then they say appointment of ineligible candidates through bribes, shared between agents, officials and ministers. The list of eligible candidates was finalised at the residence of Partha Chatterjee (then education minister) and handed over to the Commission (School Service Commission).
Of course, these originals were destroyed. But the whole manipulation was discovered based on a hard disk from Bansal. Assuming that was correct, it tells who left blank OMR sheets, who was appointed in excess of vacancies.”
The high court and later the apex court too had questioned the state government over its motive to create supernumerary posts that allowed legalising the appointments of those who had allegedly paid hefty bribes to secure a teaching job.
The state government is yet to give a satisfactory response to the question.
When Bhushan claimed his clients hadn’t been notified, the CJI reminded him, “Everybody was aware of the proceedings.”
“But you can’t cancel my selection,” argued Bhushan. “Had we known our selections were being cancelled, some of us could have probably availed some remedy. No intimation was given.”
Kapil Sibal too asserted that there was no evidence that the OMR sheets of these candidates were manipulated.
“In the so-called Bansal scanned copy, there are some names of people whose OMR sheets are not manipulated. CBI found this. There is no basis for HC to say we will set aside the appointment of those people also. When originals are not available, how do you assume that because some are manipulated, others are also manipulated?” asked Sibal.
Senior advocate Shadan Farasat appearing for C and D group employees, too argued that there were no allegations against these employees.
Also appearing for “untainted” candidates, senior advocate Menaka Guruswamy said, “There is no irregularity. We have been teaching for six years. I will hand over few numbers to make it convenient for the Court. Untainted candidates should not suffer. A disproportionate is what the high court did, that is en masse termination.”
The CJI reminded the senior advocate what the high court had said in its order.
“High Court only said when there were so many irregularities, it becomes impossible to know who were genuinely appointed and which are the ones who manipulated,” CJI Khanna said.
The Calcutta high court division bench in its order had said, ““Fraud perpetrated and perpetuated is deep and pervasive. Any attempt to shift the proverbial grain from the chaff would be an unprofitable exercise, prolonging the agony and putting a premium of dishonesty… we are left with the only option of cancelling all appointments…”
Senior advocate Meenakshi Arora had asked if the high court could have taken off people who had no allegations of OMR tampering or rank jumping.
“There is not a whisper as far as these candidates are concerned. They are meritorious, there is no rank jumping. We left jobs to join ... We were in the waitlist,” Arora said.
The CJI asked how such candidates can claim parity to other main panel candidates.
“We have understood. If you insist on arguing, it may have consequences,” the CJI said.
The Supreme Court will resume hearing on the matter while the 25,753 teachers whose jobs were nullified and lakhs of others who did not get the opportunity wait for the turn their lives could take after the SC verdict.
The Supreme Court will hear the matter again on January 27.
On January 7, the apex court had deferred the hearing in the case of the alleged Bengal School Service Commission jobs scam.