A special bench of the high court which is hearing cases related to alleged illegal appointment of Group C and D staff in government-aided secondary schools expressed its displeasure at the school service commission for failing to explain why candidates with illegal recommendations had been recruited.
“What are the facts that the SSC is trying to suppress before the court? Who did it want to shield?” Justice Debangshu Basak asked the lawyer appearing for the SSC.
The lawyer admitted that there were “some irregularities” during the appointment of school staff.
“It is a fact that some irregularities had taken place. Some candidates who ought not to have been recommended were given recommendations and were subsequently appointed in the vacant posts,” the lawyer submitted.
Hearing this, the special division bench ordered the SSC to state what steps it had taken to find out how the candidates got appointed based on illegal recommendations.
The court also sought to know from the commission whether they had any plan to provide justice to the deserving candidates.
The matter will be heard again on December 20.
During the hearing, the SSC counsel informed the court that according to CBI reports, 183 Group C and D employees had been recruited illegally.
“Of these 183 candidates, the SSC has found that 122 were appointed based on fake recommendations,” the lawyer told the court.
He submitted that the recommendations of the 122 candidates had been cancelled.
Following an order by Justice Abhijit Gangopadhyay of the high court, the CBI had conducted a probe and stated in a report that at least 183 candidates had been appointed in government-aided secondary schools in 2016 based on illegal recommendations.
Metro reported on March 4 that while replying to a query by Justice Gangopadhyay, the SSC counsel had said commission officials “might have tampered with the marks for appointing inefficient candidates in the vacant posts of Group C”.
Subires Bhattacharyya, a former SSC chairman who was arrested in September 2022 and is still behind bars in connection with the allegedly illegal appointment of teaching and non-teaching staff, helmed the panel when the selection test was held in 2016.
Calls from this newspaper to the present SSC chairman, Siddhartha Majumdar, failed to elicit any response.
A division bench of the high court headed by Justice Subrata Talukdar had upheld Justice Gangopadhyay’s order.
Thereafter, the SSC and the candidates who were identified as having been illegally appointed moved the Supreme Court.
The apex court sent the matter back to the high court asking Chief Justice T.S. Sivagnanam to set up a special division bench for the disposal of the case.
Accordingly, the Chief Justice formed the bench of Justice Basak and Justice Shabbar Rashidi to hear the case.
Para teachers
Justice Moushumi Bhattacharya of the high court directed the SSC to ensure that at least 10 per cent of the teaching posts for Classes IX and X in government-aided secondary schools be reserved for para teachers.