SSC seeks nod for Group-A officers to conduct hearings of grievance redressal

Kolkata: The West Bengal Central School Service Commission (WBCSSC) has appealed to the Calcutta High Court to allow Group-A category gazetted officers to conduct the hearing for redressal of grievances of aggrieved candidates so that the process can be expedited.

The Commission, as per directions of the court, has been holding hearings with officers of the joint secretary level. "We have set a target of October 7 to finish the hearing for grievance redressal. We have received more than 17000 applications and half of these cases have already been resolved. Presently, six joint secretary-level officers are conducting this process and we are finding it difficult to rope in more officers of such-level so that we can speed up the process for meeting the target. If we are allowed, the discretion of conducting the hearing by Group-A level gazetted officers, then we can have 10 to 12 more officers, which will help us to meet the October 7 target," a senior SSC official said.

The hearing of grievances of aggrieved candidates had started since August 10. The Commission had received around 25350 grievances from candidates, who believed that their names should have figured in the interview list for filling up teaching posts in the upper primary-level. The Commission after scanning all applications had prepared a list of more than 17,000 candidates to be called during hearing process. After dealing with each of the cases individually, the order regarding each of the cases will be submitted before the Calcutta High Court. There are a total of 14,339 vacant teaching posts in the upper primary level and 15406 candidates were called for interview.

The interview started from July 19 and ended on August 5. About 550 candidates were rejected during the interview as they failed to fulfill the criteria to be eligible for the post. The database of selected candidates of the interview has already been created by the Commission.