The school service commission is going ahead with its preparations to publish a recruitment notification for the appointment of teachers and non-teaching staff in secondary and higher secondary schools by May 29, in compliance with what the Supreme Court had ordered.

A senior official of the education department said as the Supreme Court had set the school education department and the SSC a deadline of May 31 to submit an affidavit on the fresh recruitment exercise, the notification has to be issued by May 29.

“The affidavit has to state that a fresh recruitment exercise has been initiated with the publication of the notification. What the Supreme Court had ordered is sacrosanct for us. We have to comply,” said the official.

Sources in the department said the task of determining the vacant positions was on.

The SSC is working on the recruitment notification at a time when the school staff who have been rendered jobless by a Supreme Court order have voiced their opposition to taking part in any fresh hiring exercise to retain their jobs.

The bench of then Chief Justice Sanjiv Khanna and Justice Sanjay Kumar on April 17 allowed teachers “not specifically found tainted” to return to school till December and draw salaries till then, based on an appeal by the state secondary education board. But it also said that the fresh recruitment process must start by May 31.

The apex court said in its order that the state government, the secondary education board and the SSC must file separate affidavits on their compliance with the directive and spell out the entire recruitment schedule by May 31.

The order also said that if they failed to do so, the present directive, passed in the interest of thousands of pupils, would stand vacated and costs would be imposed on the state, the school board, and the commission.

“The apex court clarified in its April 17 order that while the teachers ‘not specifically found tainted’ can continue till December 31 and are free to apply afresh, they cannot claim any special right or advantage in the fresh recruitment process. We are going to abide by the order. These teachers are free to take part in the recruitment process if they want their jobs beyond December 31,” the official said.

The only relaxation will be limited to age.

However, the scenario might change if the Supreme Court takes a more lenient view while hearing review petitions filed by the state government and the SSC.

What could the vacancy figure the department is staring at look like?

“It is likely to be much beyond 25,753 — the number of the terminated staff — considering that the state government could not hold any recruitment exercise after 2016 because of the court cases against the alleged illegalities in the recruitment process. The legal opinion that we have received verbally so far says the fresh applicants, along with those who had taken part in the selection test held in 2016, will be asked to participate in the fresh recruitment process,” said the official.

The commission has proposed that copies of the OMR sheets henceforth be preserved for two years.

Carbon copies of the OMR sheets will be given to the candidates after the written exam.

When contacted, SSC chairperson Siddhartha Majumder declined to comment.