Justice Abhijit Gangopadhay of Calcutta High Court on Thursday recommended that the West Bengal School Service Commission (WBSSC) terminate the services of 2,819 persons who were illegally appointed to Group D posts in government-aided schools.
The order came on a day the commission briefed the court that it would act against 800-odd teachers in government-aided secondary schools next week because they have been found to have got their jobs illegally.
“This court is recommending the WBSSC to start the process of cancelling the services of 2,819 Group D staff, whose appointments were found illegal,” Justice Gangopadhay said. The order followed reports from district inspectors of schools.
Justice Gangopadhay asked the WBSSC to file by Friday an affidavit stating how many candidates had got Group D jobs in secondary schools illegally (through manipulation of marks and using fake recommendation letters) and what steps the state secondary education board would take against them.
“All these candidates got jobs illegally,” the judge said after receiving the reports from district inspectors (DI) of schools.
The DI of Howrah has yet to submit his report. The judge asked him to submit the report by Friday.
The case will again come up for hearing around noon on Friday.
On Wednesday, Justice Biswajit Basu of the high court had asked the CBI and the state secondary education board to register cases against the 1,694 candidates who the judge said had got Group D jobs in schools illegally.
A WBSSC official said their report would state that the commission has been found to have made over 1,900 illegal recommendations for jobs. The OMR sheets of these candidates had been tampered with. This figure includes 1,694 candidates identified by Justice Basu.
The commission had in late September started ascertaining the number of vacant Group C and D posts in government-aided schools after the “removal of wrongly appointed candidates” in compliance with an order issued by Justice Gangopadhayay.
The judge had on September 28 said the appointment of those recruited illegally on the basis of fake recommendation letters would be cancelled.
“As part of this exercise of removal of wrongly appointed candidates, we got details of OMR sheets from the CBI towards the middle of November. We have come to know from reports from district inspectors of schools and by scanning OMR sheets that we need to remove 1,911 candidates who have been wrongly recommended. There are instances of score manipulations,” a WBSSC official said.
“For instance, a candidate who should have got 10 marks were found to have scored 50 when the results of the written test were declared.”
The WBSSC was helmed by Subires Bhattacharya, who is in the CBI’s custody in connection with his alleged role in illegal recruitments, when it held a written test for appointment to Group D and teaching posts in 2016.
The secondary education board asked the district inspectors of schools on November 18 to send “urgent information” on recruitment of teachers because of the CBI inquiry.
On Thursday, counsel representing the SSC told the court: “The WBSSC will start the process of terminating the services of nearly 800 Class IX and Class X teachers who got their jobs illegally.” Justice Ganguly said: “I want to see that every genuine candidate is absorbed in these posts.”
