New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday reserved its judgement on petitions against the Calcutta High Court's April 22, 2024 decision invalidating the appointment of 25,753 teachers and other staff in state-run and state-aided schools of West Bengal. A bench comprising Chief Justice Sanjiv Khanna and Justice Sanjay Kumar said, “Arguments heard. Judgement reserved.”
It heard 124 petitions, including the one filed by the West Bengal government, against the verdict. A battery of senior counsel including Mukul Rohatgi, Ranjit Kumar, Abhishek Singhvi, Dushyant Dave, P S Patwalia, Rakesh Dwivedi, Maninder Singh, Shyam Divan, Prashant Bhushan, Meenakshi Arora and Karuna Nandi argued in the case, representing both the parties.
Dwivedi argued for the state government to assail the high court verdict. The top court commenced the final hearing on December 19 last year and heard the parties on January 15, 27 and February 10 before reserving the much-anticipated verdict on the politically-sensitive case. The high court, citing irregularities such as OMR sheet tampering and rank-jumping, had invalidated the appointment of 25,753 teachers and non-teaching staff in state-run and state-aided schools of West Bengal.
On May 7 last year, the apex court stayed the high court's order over the appointments made by the state's school service commission (SSC). The top court, however, permitted the CBI to continue with its probe in the matter. The case stemmed from the alleged irregularities in the 2016 recruitment process conducted by the West Bengal SSC.
While 23 lakh candidates appeared for 24,640 posts, a total of 25,753 appointment letters were issued. The apex court earlier termed the alleged recruitment scam in West Bengal as a "systemic fraud" and said the state authorities were duty-bound to maintain the digitised records pertaining to the appointment of 25,753 teachers and non-teaching staff.
