The state school service commission (SSC) will move the Supreme Court on Wednesday challenging a Calcutta High Court order scrapping the jobs of 25,753 teachers and non-teaching employees who were appointed in government-aided schools through the 2016 state-level selection test.

Among those axed are 1,113 candidates who were appointed after the expiry of the original merit list.

SSC chairperson Siddhartha Majumdar said they will move the Supreme Court seeking to know why the high court scrapped the appointment of 19,000-odd teaching and non-teaching employees against whom the commission could not find any complaints of illegality in recruitment.

The commission’s findings were part of a report submitted to the high court.

The SSC chairperson had on Monday said that based on the data shared by the CBI, the commission had concluded that about 5,000 candidates had been appointed un-
fairly to Group C and D
posts and as teachers in secondary and higher secondary schools.

Majumdar said on Tuesday the SSC could not understand why the division bench said in the order that it could not “sift grain from chaff” despite going through the report.

The division bench of Justice Debangsu Basak and Justice Md Shabbar Rashidi said it was impossible to tell which appointment was legal and which one was illegal.

“The court order says we presented a statistical report about the specific cases of alleged irregularities in recruitment. That report was drawn based on what the CBI told us. So we are at a loss to understand why the court could not sift grain from chaff and scrapped the service of all the 24,600 teaching and non-teaching staff at one go,” Majumdar said. “So we are moving the Supreme Court against the order on Wednesday.”

The order by the division bench says: “Dr Sutanu Patra, appearing for the School Service Commission, has referred to the four affidavits filed pursuant to the order of this Court. He has drawn the attention of the Court to the steps and measures that SSC took subsequent to the discovery of the illegalities in the selection process.”

“He has contended that SSC took such steps on the basis of the data supplied by CBI. He has pointed out that SSC had no material to disbelieve the data supplied by CBI. Moreover, SSC had acted pursuant to the orders of the Court.”

Referring to the statistical report presented by the SSC, the court order says: “The Secretary, SSC, has submitted a statistical report with regard to the illegalities in the appointment in the respect of the four categories (Group-D, Group-C, secondary teachers and higher secondary teachers), by a signed report dated March 6, 2024, to which we have alluded to herein.”

The statistical report says the percentage of irregularity stands at 8.5 for assistant teachers at the higher secondary level, 14.47 for assistant teachers at the secondary level, 38.43 for Group-C and 44.87 for Group-D employees.

“In our report, we have even named the employees against whom we received definite complaints of irregularities. We have cooperated with the court,” the SSC chairman said.

Lawyers connected with the case said the court order also mentions: “These illegalities admitted by SSC cannot be said to be within tolerable errors of a selection process
of a large magnitude. In the course of the hearing, SSC did not discount the fact that possibilities of further illegalities exist.”

Sudipta Dasgupta, a lawyer who represented a section of deprived candidates who alleged irregularities in recruitments, said: “The fact that the SSC during the course of hearing did not discount the fact that the possibility of further illegalities exist must have prompted the court to decide on cancelling the entire recruitment. It is surprising that the SSC did not have any knowledge of the appointment of M/s. Data Scantech Solutions by M/s NYSA (the company which was hired by the SSC to evaluate the OMR sheets).”

All these aberrations, Dasgupta said, must have prompted the court to doubt the entire recruitment process.

Data Scantech worked from the SSC premises but the commission now claims ignorance about its activities.

The SSC chairman said they “needed” to move the Supreme Court to know what would be the fate of the 19,000 employees who have not been named in their report before the division bench.

The court order says, referring to earlier proceedings: “In response to the queries of the Court, Dr Patra (a lawyer for the commission) has submitted that should the Court direct evaluation of the OMR sheets afresh, then, SSC would be in a position to do so. However, the same would require considerable amount of time.”

The SSC chairperson said: “The court has not ordered a fresh evaluation of the
OMR sheets. It has ordered the SSC to undertake a fresh selection process, preferably within a fortnight of the date of declaration of the Lok Sabha election results. We need to know from the apex court what would be the fate of the 19,000 employees who have lost their jobs.”