The Supreme Court on Tuesday warned that it would pass ex-parte orders in the Bengal teacher recruitment case if the PIL petitioners on whose plea Calcutta High Court had stayed the appointment of around 25,000 teaching and non-teaching employees and ordered a CBI inquiry did not file a counter-affidavit within two weeks.

On April 29, the apex court had stayed the high court order directing a probe into the conduct of state government officials in creating supernumerary posts, but orally opined that prima facie, those who were not on the selected panel had been recruited.

When the matter came up for consideration on Tuesday, the bench of Chief Justice D.Y. Chandrachud, Justice J.B. Pardiwala and Justice Manoj Misra was informed by lawyers that the respondents (PIL petitioners) had so far not filed their counter- affidavits.

The bench then recorded in its order that no counter-affidavit had been filed yet.

“In the event that any of the respondents seek to file, they shall file on or before two weeks. If no counter is filed, then the right to file counter stands closed,” the bench said, thus indicating that it would pass appropriate orders if the respondents failed to file their response within two weeks.

The court also recorded in the order that the parties to the dispute are the Bengal government, West Bengal School Service Commission, original petitioners before the high court who had not been selected for appointment, persons whose appointments have been cancelled by the high court and the CBI.

“These are broad categories and will not exclude any person to argue before the court apart from these…. It would be necessary to have a common compilation during the hearing,” the CJI said while adjourning the matter.

The court also appointed the Bengal government’s standing counsel, Astha Sharma, and three other counsel — Shalini Kaul, Partha Chatterjee and Shekhar Kumar — who are representing various parties to the dispute, as nodal counsel in the matter.

On April 29, the apex court bench refrained from staying the entire high court judgment of April 22, quashing the recruitment process. But it agreed to examine the entire dispute at length through a detailed hearing.

The court was dealing with the Bengal government’s Special Leave Petition challenging the high court’s recent judgment quashing the recruitment of 23,123 teaching and non-teaching employees for various illegalities following a CBI probe.

The state government has contended that the ruling will lead to a “huge vacuum in the state schools” and bring the education system to “a stand-still”.

In its appeal, the state has complained that the high court had clubbed together a host of issues, and instead of segregating the valid appointments, which could not have formed part of the adjudication as opposed to the allegedly illegal ones, erroneously set aside the selection process in its entirety.

The appeal has also contended that the high court had erroneously directed the persons who were appointed from outside the panel, after the expiry of the panel and despite submitting blank OMR sheets to return all remunerations received by them, along with an interest calculated at 12 per cent per annum.

The high court had said the amount had to be returned within four weeks of the date of the impugned order.