Order barring supernumerary posts challenged at HC div bench

Kolkata: The decision of a single bench of the Calcutta High Court to bar 1600 supernumerary posts for SLST-2016 hiring has now been challenged at a Division Bench where the matter is likely to be taken up next week.

The division bench comprising Justice Tapabrata Chakraborty and Justice Reetobroto Kumar Mitra is learnt to have admitted the appeal challenging the single- judge order.

The single bench of Justice Biswajit Basu, earlier this month, had examined the state’s May 19, 2022 notification — which sanctioned 750 posts for Work Education and 850 for Physical Education — and found that these vacancies were created without following Rule 8 of the 2016 Recruitment Rules, including the requirement that vacancies be formally notified before any recommendation is made.

The single bench had observed that the posts were “apparently new vacancies” and could not be filled by recommending names from the 2016 panel or waitlist under Rule 16. The court had noted that the SLST-2016 waitlist had expired on December 11, 2019. Candidates shown as waitlisted therefore had no subsisting legal status when the posts were created in 2022.