Chief minister Mamata Banerjee on Tuesday appealed to the judiciary that they should not take away jobs easily and, instead, think of ways on how jobs can be returned to those whose services have been terminated.
The services of thousands of employees in government-aided schools have been terminated over the past few months because of irregularities in appointment, including manipulation of marks.
The chief minister’s appeal came a day after a notice issued by the West Bengal School Service Commission revealed a glaring mismatch of marks between what 785 Group C employees in schools had actually scored in a job test and what their results showed.
The high court has ordered the termination of all 785 employees.
Mamata said she was “pained” by the fact that some of those who were sacked had committed suicide.
“People are getting sacked left right and centre. Yesterday, two committed suicide. If some have faulted, why will others suffer for this? Why will thousands of boys and girls land in a mess? Please return their jobs in a legal way. If required, hold tests afresh. We will act as ordered by you,” the chief minister said at a programme in Alipore Judges’ Court on the occasion of sesquicentenary of Aurobindo Ghose.
“The chief justice is not present here. I will tell Subratada (Justice Subrata Talukdar of Calcutta High Court) who is present. This is my personal opinion…. Please don’t take away jobs easily.”
The 785 Group C employees have moved a division bench headed by Justice Talukdar against the termination order.
Over 3,700 teachers and non-teaching employees of government-aided schools have been sacked so far. The jobs of several thousands more are under the scanner for alleged irregularities in appointment.
Justice Abhijit Gangopadhyay of the high court has threatened to scrap an entire panel of over 40,000 candidates, “if necessary”.
The division bench headed by Justice Talukdar had earlier this month upheld the SSC’s decision to cancel the appointment of 618 secondary school teachers. The same bench had in February upheld the SSC’s decision to terminate the appointment of 1,911 Group D employees.
The chief minister in her speech referred to retired Supreme Court judge Asok Kumar Ganguly.
“I read a verdict that Asok Kumar Ganguly gave during the tenure of the CPM in an employment-related case. He asked for a rectification if there was any mistake. He did not say anything about taking away jobs. And now you see jobs of thousands are being taken away in the blink of an eye,” the chief minister said.
When The Telegraph contacted Justice Ganguly on Tuesday evening, he said: “I was a judge in Calcutta High Court till 2006.... I don’t remember there was any such corruption case, like the one which has surfaced today, during the Left Front regime.”
“The irregularity or error, whatever might have been in the appointment (then), could not have been of the magnitude we are seeing today. For correction, there has to be some procedure.... Now there is no such process. The entire thing is void,” the retired judge said.
According to the WBSSC’s admission, at least four Group C candidates who got zero based on the evaluation of their OMR sheets ended up with 57 or 56 in the results uploaded on the server of the SSC.
Mamata, who had earlier held CPM leader and lawyer Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharyya responsible for the loss of jobs in schools through his petitions, said in her address: “After coming to power I did not take away the job of any CPM cadre. Then why are you taking the jobs away?... Please don’t endanger the future of the youth.”
