School Jobs Scam: Calcutta HC Cancels 2016 Recruitment, 25,000 Teachers Lose Jobs, Must Return Salary in 6 Weeks

West Bengal School Jobs Scam: In the midst of the Lok Sabha elections, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s government got a big setback from the Calcutta High Court on Monday (April 22). The court has canceled all the appointments of teaching and non-teaching staff recruited through the 2016 state-level test in government-sponsored and aided schools. Due to this decision of the court, more than 25 thousand teachers in the state have lost their jobs simultaneously. 

Actually, irregularities were seen in the school recruitments in West Bengal in 2016. After this, the court was approached by filing petitions and appeals. The CBI, which is investigating the school recruitment scam, has also arrested former education minister of the state Partha Chatterjee and some officials who held posts in the West Bengal School Service Commission (SSC). At the same time, the court has also ordered the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to investigate the school recruitment scam.

25000 teachers lost their jobs at once in Bengal

A division bench of Justice Debangsu Basak and Justice Mohammad Shabbar Rashidi of the Calcutta High Court ruled to cancel the recruitment process for school jobs. With this decision of the court, 25,753 teachers have lost their jobs in the state. However, the court has ordered the Mamata government to return the salaries of all teaching and non-teaching staff within six weeks. The court has also said that a notification should be issued for new recruitments.

What is school recruitment scam? 

In West Bengal, the Mamata government had announced recruitment of teachers and non-teaching staff in schools in 2016. Through this recruitment, teachers were to be selected for secondary and higher secondary schools. Youths were being recruited under Group C and Group D categories for non-teaching staff in schools. However, it was alleged that there was tampering in the OMR sheets submitted by the candidates in the recruitment test. 

The matter of irregularities in the recruitment process again reached the Calcutta High Court. In this regard, several petitions were filed in the court, which demanded an investigation into the recruitment process. The court heard all these petitions together. The High Court had also directed the CBI to investigate the recruitment scam. After this, the investigating agency submitted its investigation report to the court within two months. After receiving the report, the hearing was completed on March 20 and the decision has come today.

There was also a scam in the recruitment of non-teaching staff

At the same time, there was another case related to the teacher recruitment scam, which was not related to teachers but to non-teaching staff. In 2016, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s government issued a notification through the School Service Commission (SSC) for the recruitment of 13,000 Group D employees in government or aided schools. The tenure of the panel that was entrusted with the responsibility of recruiting these posts ended in 2019 itself. 

However, several petitions alleged that recruitments continued even after the panel’s tenure ended. According to the petitions filed in the Calcutta High Court, at least 25 such appointments were made through the West Bengal SSC. The petitioners claimed that about 500 people were appointed illegally, the Indian Express reported.

At the same time, the High Court clubbed all the petitions together and then started hearing the case. It ordered the CBI to investigate the matter and asked it to submit the investigation report. The CBI included all the information in its report and submitted it to the court. The hearing in the teacher recruitment scam was completed on March 20. After this, on Monday, the court gave its verdict and cancelled the recruitments.