SC stays Cal HC order on cancellation of jobs, bats for segregating tainted appointments

Kolkata: The Supreme Court on Tuesday stayed the Calcutta High Court’s verdict on cancellation of 25, 753 teaching and non-teaching appointments made under the 2016 recruitment process by the West Bengal Central School Service Commission (SSC).

While calling for an expedited hearing in the case, the Bench of Chief Justice of India (CJI) D Y Chandrachud, Justice J B Pardiwala and Justice Manoj Misra listed the matter for hearing on July 16.

The court ordered that the ad interim protection would continue subject to the express stipulation that “any person found to have been appointed illegally and has continued as a consequence of the present order shall undertake to refund the salary drawn from the date of this order and the final judgement of this order,” which includes all four categories — assistant teachers for classes IX-X, assistant teachers for class XI-XII, Group C and Group D staff — who were appointed in 2016.

The Division Bench of Calcutta High Court held that the appointments made were violative of Article 14 of the Constitution and therefore null and void. As a consequence, more than 25,000 appointments were set aside by the HC. While setting aside the appointments, the Calcutta High Court had directed persons appointed outside the panel, after the expiry of the panel, to return all the benefits received with 12 per cent interest per annum, failing which the outstanding will be recovered as land revenue.

The advocate representing the West Bengal Board of Secondary Education on Tuesday submitted that the judgement affects 17,000 to 18,000 teachers in the state which is almost 1/6th. It was submitted that if they lose a whole chunk of trained teachers, they will not have any senior headmasters at a later stage.

According to a news agency, the state had argued that the High Court instead of segregating the valid from invalid appointments has set the 2016 recruitment entirely. It was further pleaded that the special bench had relied upon oral arguments without the support of affidavits.

It was stated that the result of this judgement will create a vacuum in the state unless the new selection process is completed. Hence, it will impact the students considering the upcoming new academic session.

The Division Bench of Calcutta HC had also directed a probe by Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) into supernumerary posts by doing a custodial interrogation. The Supreme Court on Tuesday directed that the investigation ordered by HC will continue but no coercive steps can be taken.

The Supreme Court directed that the investigation ordered by HC as per clauses 7 and 8 in the operative directions shall continue but no coercive steps be taken.

Clause 7 of the High Court order entailed CBI probe in all four cases and directed it to interrogate all persons who received appointments beyond the panel, its expiry and after submitting blank OMR sheets. It was directed that CBI could undertake custodial interrogation in this case. Similarly, in Clause 8, further CBI probe was directed with regards to creation of supernumerary posts and CBI was given liberty to undertake custodial interrogation if necessary.

On May 19, 2022, the state government in the school Education department issued an order creating 6,861 supernumerary posts for absorbing staff from waitlisted candidates and directed an appointment letter to such candidates should be issued in term of the SSC subject to the outcome in the HC case, the Supreme Court’s order stated.