A division bench headed by Justice Subrata Talukdar of the high court on Thursday declined to issue an interim stay on an order passed by Justice Abhijit Gangopadhyay that asked the West Bengal School Service Commission (WBSSC) to terminate the recommendations of 1,911 Group D staff.
The staff had been found to have got their jobs in government-aided schools through manipulation of marks nearly five years ago.
The division bench, however, stayed a part of the order by Justice Gangopadhyay, in which the judge had directed the terminated candidates to refund the amount they received as salaries since they joined the service, for the time being.
“Till the court issues any further order, the petitioners (Group D employees) will not have to refund the amount they received as salaries,” said Justice Talukdar.
Justice Gangopadhyay in his order had said former WBSSC chairman Subires Bhattacharyya would not be able to use his master’s degree and PhD certificates pending the completion of the CBI probe against him.
“This part of Justice Gangopadhyay’s order has not been stayed by the division bench on Thursday,” a court official said after the order.
The division bench fixed March 3 for the next hearing of the case.
“Since the division bench disposed of the appeal, the terminated candidates will not be allowed to enter their schools,” the official said.
Challenging the legality of Justice Gangopadhyay’s order, most of the 1,911 Group D staff had moved the appeal before the division bench.
Moving the petition on behalf of the appellants, advocate Ashok Banerjee pointed out the single bench judge (Justice Gangopadhyay) had issued his order ex parte and did not give an opportunity to his clients to submit their cases.
“The judge took the decision on the basis of CBI’s claim of recovering the OMR sheet from a hard disc in Ghaziabad. But the CBI is not above the law. The trial judge did not find it fit to verify whether the claim by the CBI was true,” the lawyer said.
CBI in its report submitted before Justice Gangopadhyay in September had said they detected a mismatch of marks of 2,823 candidates, of which the WBSSC had recommended the state secondary education board to appoint 1,911 candidates as Group D employees.
A copy of the judge’s order posted on the website of the WBSSC says CBI made a thorough comparison of the marks contained in the hard disc retrieved from Ghaziabad and those on the server of the commission.
Manipulation of marks meant the candidate’s marks in selection test results stored in the commission’s server did not correspond with the response captured on the OMR sheet, details of which were retrieved from the hard disc, said a WBSSC official.
The lawyer also said that for the last five years, his clients had earned their salaries against delivery of service.
“How can the court ask them to refund the amount?” the lawyer asked.
CBI counsel Billwadal Bhattacharya said: “Whatever documents my client recovered from Ghaziabad, have been placed before Justice Gangopadhyay. After verifying the documents, the judge issued the order.”
The lawyer said that the hearing of the case had been going on for quite some time before the trial judge.
“The appellants did not take part in those hearings. Now, left with no option, they have approached the division bench to save their services,” the lawyer said.
After hearing the lawyers, the division bench issued an interim order.
