Calcutta:
The West Bengal School Service Commission on Thursday claimed that it had provided the Calcutta High Court's lists of around 5,300 appointees of the 2016 school recruitment panel, whose appointments were suspect, and stated that the remaining 19,000 teachers were “likely to be considered”.
The committee also said it was of the view that the 19,000 teachers, whose appointments have also been canceled due to a Supreme Court ruling, may have met the necessary qualification criteria laid down by the appointing authorities.
Speaking to reporters, state SSC chairman Siddhartha Majumdar said, “We have submitted to the court lists of candidates where discrepancies in recruitment were found. These lists were based on two specific recruitment irregularities, namely the manipulation of Optical Mark Recognition (OMR) sheets and rank jumping. The total number of such candidates for groups C and D and teachers for classes 9-10 and 11-12 was approximately 5,300.” The claim came in the wake of a verdict by a special bench of the Supreme Court on Monday, ruling all 25,753 appointments made through the recruitment process of State Level Selection Test-2016 (SLST) in government-sponsored and aided schools of West Bengal were scrapped.
The court also ruled that some of these recruits must repay the salaries drawn by them, along with 12 percent interest per year.
In its judgment, the court stated that it had chosen to cancel the entire appointment panel as it became impossible to separate the chaff from the grain due to the non-cooperation of the SSC and the Bangladeshi government in providing the names of those who had been recruited illegally.
In view of the court's order, the commission will soon start a new recruitment process in which fresh candidates and those who have lost their school jobs due to the court's verdict can apply, Majumdar said.
“Our lawyers have pointed out some points of confusion in the HC judgment on which we will seek guidance from the Supreme Court. All the affidavits submitted by SSC to the HC in the past have been submitted to the Supreme Court,” he said.
Four affidavits have been filed in the court since December last year in which the commission provided the names and roll numbers of the suspected recruits, Majumdar said, adding that the lists were also shared with the CBI.
It is worth mentioning that in its judgment the court listed seventeen types of irregularities that were used in perpetrating the recruitment scam.
Stating that the SSC has so far found that more than 19,000 candidates from the 2016 SLST test were eligible and had no irregularities in appointment, Majumdar said, “We have filed a review petition in the Supreme Court to quash the verdict of the Calcutta High Court.” The SSC chairman maintained that claims made by certain quarters that the commission had not informed the CBI and the court about its findings were false.
'The court had asked us four questions and we answered them all. The CBI has also agreed to many submissions made by us before the court and we do not think that so many candidates have been recruited fraudulently. his own analysis and observations, but not all candidates can be equally inefficient,” he said.
Majumdar also said that before he took office, the SSC had held an advisory on the 2016 batch on August 3, 2020, despite the expiry of the panel, which “should not have happened due to technical reasons”.
“However, the court did not object to this as it was done strictly on the basis of merit,” he added.
Meanwhile, Education Minister Bratya Basu said the state government will keep OMR sheets for 10 years.
Speaking to reporters at Trinamool Bhavan, Basu highlighted the state's decision to retain the OMR forms of each candidate for 10 years, based on the lessons learned from the SSC recruitment controversy.
He indicated that the majority of SSC's 26,000 employees in 2017-2018 were indeed eligible, citing SSC's acknowledgment that 92 percent of them were considered qualified.
Criticizing the narrative propagated by the BJP and certain quarters, Basu alleged that there were widespread irregularities in SSC recruitment despite the state government's intervention and punitive action against violators.
He denounced this narrative as detrimental to the interests of the people of Bengal and against the ethos of “Maa Mati Manush” (Mother, Country, People).
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by DailyExpertNews staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)