Bengal government’s petition to the Supreme Court for a review of its April 3 order that en masse terminated school staff says the court failed to appreciate that over 18,000 candidates “not specifically found tainted” have also been made to suffer “for the alleged illegality committed by the SSC in the selection process in respect of certain other tainted candidates”.

The petition was submitted last week, on the same day the school service commission (SSC) filed a separate review petition.

The government’s petition says that though the apex court identified candidates whose selection process was tainted and “whose appointments alone could have been cancelled”, the court cancelled the “appointments of even such candidates which were not specifically found tainted”.

This newspaper has gone through a draft of the review petition.

It says if the court had examined the authenticity of the data submitted by the CBI, the segregation of the tainted from the untainted would have been possible with “a greater degree of certainty” and the jobs of candidates “not specifically found tainted could have been saved”.

The government has also argued for the non-teaching (Group C and D) staff who were not granted any temporary relief, which the Supreme Court extended to 15,403 “not specifically found tainted” teachers on April 17.

These teachers have been allowed to return to school till December.

The petition says all appointed candidates, “including non-teaching staff not found to be tainted”, be allowed to continue in service until the fresh hiring process is concluded.

An education department official said the petitions filed by it and the SSC were likely to be heard after B.R. Gavai was sworn in as the next Chief Justice of India on May 14.

A division bench headed by the outgoing Chief Justice, Sanjiv Khanna, had on April 3 ordered the termination of 25,753 teachers and non-teaching staff at the secondary and higher secondary levels of government-aided schools because the entire selection process in 2016 was “vitiated”.

The government has sought a review of the court’s direction that the tainted candidates refund the salaries they received when they were in service.

The petition says: “During such period, all such persons rendered service and discharged duties of a teaching or non-teaching staff.... Under such circumstances, it would be unfair and unjust to direct such persons to refund their salary as this would result in a situation where persons
who have actually rendered services will have ended up serving without any compensation.”

“It is submitted that the Impugned Judgment, to this extent, is manifestly unjust and would cause a grave miscarriage of justice to such persons who may not even have the financial capacity to refund their salaries received for over 5 years, when all such persons would have invariably spent such earnings on their livelihood.”

The government has urged the court to take a “humane view” and “review” its decision directing the refund of salaries.

Sangita Saha, one of the 15,403 teachers who have returned to school for now, said that apart from the government and the SSC, some of them had individually filed review petitions last week.

“We contended that the apex court’s April 17 order suggests that a segregation of the tainted and not tainted was possible,” she said.