The high court on Thursday held that since documents on the appointment of teachers for Classes IX and X and Group C and D staff in 2016 were not presented in the court, it may have no option left but to order a fresh evaluation of the employees or cancel the recruitment process.
The division bench of Justice Debangshu Basak and Justice Md. Shabbar Rashidi spoke about such an intent after the school service commission (SSC) repeatedly failed to provide the OMR sheets (answer scripts) and other documents related to the appointment of the secondary school staff in 2016.
The SSC conducts the screening for the appointment of teachers and Group C and D staff at the secondary and higher secondary levels in government-aided schools.
When the case came up for hearing before the division bench on Thursday, Justice Basak, the senior judge on the bench, asked the SSC counsel whether his client was submitting the documents.
The lawyer said that as the CBI had seized the OMR sheets of the candidates, it would not be possible for the SSC to provide the necessary documents in the court.
The judge said the CBI had returned the OMR sheets but the lawyer representing the SSC submitted that there were no documents to verify whether the OMR sheets returned by the CBI were genuine or not.
Justice Basak said: “Then the court would have no option left but to either cancel the entire recruitment process or order a re-evaluation of the appointed candidates.”
Some irregularities in the appointment of teachers and other staff in government-aided secondary schools came to light during hearings conducted by Justice Abhijit Gangopadhyay in the high court. The judge has since resigned and joined the BJP.
Justice Gangopadhyay had ordered a CBI probe and asked the SSC to identify candidates appointed illegally and fill the vacancies with candidates from the list of those who were denied jobs because of the irregularities.
The state had first moved the division bench and then the Supreme Court against Justice Gangopadhyay’s order.
The apex court sent the cases back to the Chief Justice of Calcutta High Court and asked him to set up a special bench to dispose of the cases.
Following the Supreme Court’s directive, Chief Justice T.S. Sivagnanam of Calcutta High Court constituted the special division bench of Justice Basak and Justice Rashidi.
The bench will again hear the case on Friday.