Calcutta High Court on Friday ordered an interim stay on the Bengal government’s decision to provide a monthly allowance to those sacked as Group C and Group D employees of aided schools by a Supreme Court order of April 3.

Justice Amrita Sinha said the decision to give the monthly allowance — ₹25,000 for Group C and ₹20,000 for Group D staff — ran counter to the spirit of the apex court’s sack order, which had cited a “vitiated” recruitment process.

“The interim order will prevail till September 26 (the last working day of the court before the month-long Durga Puja vacation),” Justice Sinha said in her order.

The state government has decided to challenge the single-bench order before a division bench.

Chief minister Mamata Banerjee had on April 27 told a delegation of the sacked non-teaching staff at Nabanna that they would be paid the allowance as part of the West Bengal Livelihood Social Security Interim Scheme, 2025.

Justice Sinha’s interim order said: “Once the highest Court of the land has decided the issue of illegal appointment conclusively and opined that the appointments were results of fraud, no person who was the beneficiary of a fraudulent act of the statutory authority ought to be provided any support, that too, from the public exchequer.”

The order underlined that the beneficiaries would be paid the allowance “without performing any job, duty or work”.

“If eventually, after hearing all the parties in the writ petition, the Court opines that the scheme is in violation of the legal provisions, then there will hardly be any scope to get a refund of the money paid to these persons,” the order said.

The order said: “Specific observation of the Hon’ble Supreme Court in the judgment dated 3rd April, 2025, is that the service of the tainted candidates be terminated and they should refund any salary/ payment received since their appointments were the result of fraud, which amounts to cheating.”

Justice Sinha directed the state government to file an affidavit on the order within four weeks.

The petitioners who had challenged the government decision on the allowance have to submit their responses within two weeks of thestate government filing its affidavit.

“The case will come up for a detailed hearing after six weeks. Till further order, no disbursement of the amount could be made to those school staff,” Justice Sinha said.

Two sections of non-teaching job aspirants had moved petitions against the government decision.

One of the petitions was filed by those who had cracked the regional-level selection tests conducted by the School Service Commission in 2016 and were waitlisted, but never got the jobs, allegedly because of irregularities in the recruitment process.

These candidates demanded that they too be given the monthly allowance as they had suffered because of alleged illegalities in the screening process.

The other petition was moved by candidates who had appeared in the 2016 tests but could not crack the written examination. Alleging they were not selected because of anomalies in evaluation, these petitioners opposed any assistance to the sacked employees.

“It has been revealed that even people who submitted blank answer sheets were recruited whereas we, who scored better, remained stuck on the waiting list,” Prokash Mandal, a waitlisted candidate, said.

“We are not against the allowances, but we demanded that if those who have been terminated are being paid allowances, why should waitlisted candidates not get thesame benefit? We have been the worst sufferers. We have been deprived of our jobs because of the tainted candidates.”

A senior lawyer from the state panel said: “Since the issue is pending disposal before the Supreme Court, a trial court cannot issue such an interim order.”

The state government has challenged the April 3 sack order before the Supreme Court, and the petition is likely to be heard next month.