Bengali government appeals Supreme Court ruling against HC’s SSC scam order
Following the 2016 SSC recruitment process, the Calcutta High Court’s ruling invalidating almost 24,000 teaching and non-teaching posts was challenged by the West Bengal government in a Special Leave Petition that was submitted to the Supreme Court on Wednesday.
The event occurred after the Calcutta High Court issued an order on Monday to revoke the appointments of all teachers and Group C and D staff in West Bengal’s government and aide schools who were hired via the State Level Selection Test-2016 (SLST).
Because of the cash-for-jobs recruiting scandal, the positions filled as a consequence of the 2016 SSC recruitment procedure were contested. For the 24,640 open positions in the 2016 SLST, more than 23 lakh individuals applied.
The division bench, which is made up of justices Debangsu Basak and Md. Shabbar Rashidi, delivered the ruling and requested that the CBI turn in a report within the next three months. Additionally, it requested that the West Bengal School Service Commission (SSC) start a new hiring procedure.
WHAT IS THE “SCAM” IN WEST BENGAL SSC?
The fraud gained notoriety in July 2022 when the CBI detained many West Bengal School Service Commission officials and former state education minister Partha Chatterjee on suspicion of participating in the unlawful teacher recruitment.
West Bengal first declared in 2014 that it would use the SLST method to hire teachers for government schools. This procedure started in 2016, when Partha Chatterjee was the state’s minister of education. Nonetheless, a few applicants complained about the hiring procedure to the Calcutta High Court.
They said that some applicants who had lesser marks were placed higher on the merit list. A number of individuals allegedly received job offers despite not being on the merit list.
The West Bengal government instructed the SSC to staff state schools with 13,000 Group-D workers in 2016. But by 2019, the power in charge of the recruiting procedure had run out. The High Court received petitions alleging that 25 unauthorized appointments were made via the SSC. However, in later petitions, the figure rose to 500.
