WB teacher recruitment scam: 'It is a systemic fraud', says CJI Chandrachud

A Bench, led by Chief Justice DY Chandrachud, on Tuesday, heard an appeal from the West Bengal government. The appeal contested the April 22 ruling of the Calcutta High Court, which revoked around 24,000 appointments of teaching and non-teaching staff made in 2016 by the West Bengal School Service Commission.

During the case hearing, CJI Chandrachud termed the alleged recruitment irregularities in West Bengal as a "systemic fraud". The CJI said that the authorities were obligated to uphold digitised records related to the hiring of 25,753 teachers and non-teaching staff, the Bar and Bench reported.



 

The bench noted that the state government lacked evidence indicating that its authorities had maintained the data and inquired about its availability.

"Public jobs are so scarce... Nothing remains if the faith of the public goes. This is systemic fraud. Public jobs are extremely scarce today and are looked at for social mobility. What remains in the system if their appointments are also maligned? People will lose faith, how do you counter this?" the CJI asked the lawyers representing the West Bengal government.

CJI Chandrachud further asked, "What was the need to shortlist during the proceedings? The government created the posts in 2022?"

Answering to this, the lawyers, appearing for the state government, said, "In January 2019, all appointments had been done. But they challenged later and had to be weeded out after 2.5 years and problems arose out of our own making."

The Bar and Bench quoted a state government lawyer as saying, "Apprehension was we did not want huge vacancies, so waitlisted candidates were taken on superannuated posts with disposal of the writ."

It was argued that the Calcutta High Court bench did not have the jurisdiction to cancel the jobs. "Its orders conflict with the Supreme Court's judgments in the matter," another lawyer said.

Following this, the apex court asked, "But if selection itself was challenged, why would you hire from waitlisted and create supernumerary posts?"

The court further said that the OMR sheets and the scanned copies were destroyed.

'Expected digital copies in this age', says CJI Chandrachud

Talking about keeping a digitised record, CJI Chandrachud said, "It was your duty as SSC to keep mirror digital copies of the sheets? We did not expect you to keep OMR copies but digital copies in this age. You were unaware that the service provider put a sub-contract under your supervisory control."

The bench further stated during the hearing, "Either you have the data or you do not have it.... You were duty-bound to maintain the documents in digitised form. Now, it is obvious that there is no data. You are unaware of the fact that your service provider has engaged another agency. You had to maintain supervisory control."

Earlier, the state government had contested the Calcutta High Court's ruling, asserting that it had annulled the appointments "arbitrarily".