Calcutta HC Cancels Appointment of 25,753 Education Department Employees
Kolkata: The Calcutta High Court on Monday cancelled the appointment of 25,753 state education department employees including teaching and non-teaching staffs, recruited by the School Service Commission in a panel in 2016, over corruption. The court order comes as major blow to the Trinamul Congress government amid the ongoing Lok Sabha Elections.
A division bench of the High Court Justice Debangsu Basak and Justice Mohammed Shabbar Rashidi passed the judgment after hearing the petitions on SSC cash for jobs scam, being probed by the Central Bureau of Investigation and Enforcement Directorate. The court directed those appointed through ‘illegal’ method to return their remuneration to the district magistrates with 12 per cent interest within a month.
The bench, however, spared an employee, Soma Das, a cancer patient, from losing her job on humanitarian grounds. Petitioners’ lawyer Firdous Shamim said, “The HC cancelled the entire 2016 panel. Those who lost jobs include secondary (Class IX and X) and higher secondary (Class XI and XII) teachers as well as Group C and Group D staff.”
He added, “The HC also ordered a fresh recruitment process that should start after the Lok Sabha polls and directed the candidates, recruited by the state government after expiry of the time frame of the 2016 panel, to return their entire salaries in four weeks.”
The HC judgment came after it had ordered a re-evaluation of the candidates’ optical mark recognition (OMR) sheets of the 2016 SSC recruitment examination in the scam.
Meanwhile, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee termed the High Court judgment illegal and alleged BJP influence in it.
Addressing a TMC rally at Chakulia in Raiganj of North Dinajpur, the Chief Minister said, “I am not talking about the judges, but I can speak on a judgment. It is our right and I challenge it because nearly 26,000 candidates mean 1.5-2 lakh families. Is it possible to return the salaries of eight years of service? Can those of you who passed this judgment return your entire life’s earnings at one go? All of you survive on government salaries, vehicles and security. People respect you, and so do we. This order is illegal. We will move a higher court against it. We have another 10 lakh government jobs ready.”
Referring to Leader of the Opposition Suvendu Adhikari’s recent threat of a bomb explosion, Banerjee alleged, “Someone had talked about exploding a bomb which is about snatching nearly 26,000 jobs. Mark my words, I will fight for them whose jobs are at stake now. They don’t need to worry, lose hope and put life at risk. All of us are with you and will fight as far as we can.”
The TMC chief also pointed out, “There is something which is neither Mandir nor Masjid..it is a BJP court where they adjudicate matters politically. If someone sides with BJP, he gets bail, for others it's jail. This has become the state of affairs here.”
