The West Bengal School Service Commission (WBSSC) on Friday cancelled the “recommendations” on the basis of which 1,911 candidates had illegally got Group D jobs in government-aided secondary schools.
The cancellation of the recommendation means cancellation of service, a lawyer explained.
The move comes after Justice Abhijit Gangopadhyay of Calcutta High Court said the 1,911 candidates had illegally got their jobs.
In response to Thursday’s order by Justice Gangopadhyay, the WBSSC on Friday filed an affidavit saying 1,911 Group D employees had been identified as having been recruited based on fake recommendation letters.
The WBSSC said in the affidavit the marks of these candidates had been manipulated, as suggested by the hard disc the CBI had seized from a Ghaziabad-based company that was hired by the commission to store data.
After receiving the affidavit, Justice Gangopadhyay directed the WBSSC to issue a notification cancelling the recommendations.
“The school education department should stop the salaries of these persons from today (Friday) and they should not be allowed to enter the respective schools,” Justice Gangopadhyay said.
These candidates will have to refund in monthly instalments the amount they have drawn as salary since joining the service, the judge said.
Later in the day, the candidates whose appointments had been cancelled appealed against Justice Gangopadhyay’s order before a division headed by Justice Subrata Talukdar.
Counsel for the petitioners appealed for an urgent hearing, but the bench rejected the prayer.
Justice Gangopadhyay said Subires Bhattacharyya, a former chairman of the commission (from 2014 to 2018) who is in the CBI’s custody in connection with alleged irregularities in appointments, should be held guilty for issuing fake recommendations and interrogated by the investigators.
“Either he (Bhattacharya) will have to speak out, naming the person or persons who instructed him to do so (issue the fake recommendation letters) or has to take responsibility for the crime,” the judge said.
“(Subires) Bhattacharya will not be allowed to use his master’s degree and doctorate certificate till his acquittal from the case. If he is afraid of a particular family, the Centre can provide him security,” the judge said.
The judge asked the WBSSC to find out whether there were more cases of illegal appointments.
Soon after the judge’s directive, the WBSSC issued a notification saying the high court had directed the commission to cancel the recommendation for appointment issued to candidates among the 2,823 persons “who were reported by CBI as of having manipulations found in their OMR data”.
The notification says: “And whereas the Commission has found that 1,911 recommendations were issued among the 2,823 candidates… the recommendations of 1,911 candidates... are hereby cancelled today.”
The state secondary education board came up with a notice stating: “The appointment letters as mentioned in Annexure A of 1,911 Group D candidates stand cancelled.”