The high court will decide on May 1 if it has the jurisdiction to hear a contempt petition against the state education department in the school service commission recruitment case.

“On May 1, this court will announce whether it has the jurisdiction to hear the case at all,” Justice Debangsu Basak said on Monday.

Justice Basak is the senior judge on the division bench that also includes Justice Raja Basu Choudhury.

The lawyers representing the state and the SSC have claimed that since the Supreme Court had modified the order passed by Calcutta High Court, the bench did not have the jurisdiction to hear a contempt petition on the order.

On April 22, 2024, the high court terminated the jobs of 25,753 teachers and non-teaching staff who were recruited by the SSC on the basis of the 2016 state-level selection test. The state government moved the Supreme Court against the order, but on April 3, 2025, the court upheld it.

On April 17, the apex court modified its April 3 order and allowed the sacked but “not specifically tainted” teachers to continue in their posts till December 31. The court, however, did not provide similar relief to the sacked non-teaching staff (Group C and D), saying the number of tainted candidates was “substantially high” among them.

The petitioners filed the contempt plea against the education department and the SSC, alleging that the department and commission had not uploaded OMR sheets and no steps were taken to get the salaries back from the tainted candidates as the court had ordered.

The petition also claimed that the names of those whose appointments were cancelled by the high court’s April 2024 order have been included in the salary portal for April 2025.

At the last hearing on April 23, senior advocate Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharyya, who appeared for teachers and staff, said since the contempt petition was civil, the “high court division bench has the jurisdiction to hear the case”.