Recruitment scam case: Supreme Court to hear pleas in Sept

Kolkata: The Supreme Court on Tuesday is learnt to have said it would hear in September the pleas of the West Bengal government and others challenging a Calcutta High Court order that invalidated the appointment of 25,753 teachers and non-teaching staff in state government and aided schools.

A bench headed by Chief Justice DY Chandrachud granted time to the parties to file their responses to the petitions by August 16. The CJI said: “Time for filing the written submissions for the petitioners in the West Bengal group of matters will be extended till next Friday”.

The apex court reportedly asked the nodal counsel to prepare a common compilation of the records in electronic form and ensure that the judgments cited by the parties were part of one set of the PDF documents.

The Supreme Court has been hearing 33 petitions on the high court’s April 22 judgment on the matter. The final hearing has been fixed in September.

The pleas challenging the order also include the one filed by the West Bengal government. The bench was informed that the response affidavits had not been filed by many parties. The West Bengal government had also not filed its reply in cases where it was made a respondent.

The apex court on May 7 granted a major relief to teachers and non-teaching staff of West Bengal whose services were invalidated by the high court on the grounds of irregularities in the appointment process. The CBI was, however, permitted to continue with its probe and investigate members of the state Cabinet, if needed. However, the Central probe agency was asked not to take any precipitative action such as arrest of any suspect during its investigation.

More than 23 lakh candidates appeared for the State Level Selection Test (SLST)-2016 for 24,640 vacant posts. A total of 25,753 appointment letters were issued against the 24,640 vacancies.

The high court had instructed those appointed outside the officially available 24,640 vacancies, appointed after the expiry of the official recruitment date, and those who submitted blank OMR sheets but obtained

appointments to return all remunerations and benefits received by them with 12 per cent per annum interest

within four weeks.