Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee on Thursday said the state government was looking for options to reinstate the “tainted” candidates in the cash-for-school jobs scam even if they cannot continue as teachers.
“I am holding talks with lawyers to see if the tainted candidates can be given employment in group-C and group-D categories if they cannot continue as teachers in the state-run schools,” Mamata said at an event on Thursday, a day ahead of Teachers’ Day.
A week ago a Supreme Court division bench of Justice Sanjay Kumar and Justice Satish Kumar Sharma had instructed the state School Service Commission (SSC) to publish the names of the tainted candidates, who had allegedly paid money to secure jobs in government schools in teaching and non-teaching posts in the 2016 state-level selection test.
The SC has made it clear to the SSC and the state government that the tainted candidates will not be allowed to seek employment afresh.
On Saturday evening, acting on the apex court’s instructions, the SSC had published the names of 1,804 tainted candidates from the 2016 recruitment scam.
The apex court had told the SSC that it would not allow any of the tainted candidates to appear for the fresh recruitment process beginning with the exams scheduled for September 7 and 14.
After the recruitments were cancelled, the apex court had instructed the state government to complete the recruitment process by the end of 2025.
“These people have been teaching in schools for the last 10 years. We are trying to find a humane solution to the problem, since we don’t handle these things politically,” Mamata told the assembled gathering of teachers from varsities, colleges and schools from across the state on Thursday.
Mamata said the state government had already relaxed the age conditions for untainted teachers who are reappearing in the recruitment process.
The chief minister said she had asked chief secretary Manoj Pant to seek legal opinion on the recruitment of group-C and group-D staff, who also lost their jobs by the court order.
“Recruitment process of teachers is on. We still have around 21,000 vacancies. Whenever we try to fill the posts, someone or the other goes to the court and get a stay order. I am not blaming the courts,” the chief minister said.
The SSC had uploaded a list of 1,020 candidates whose admit cards were rejected or being rejected because the names of these candidates had appeared in the “tainted” list.
Probing the case, the CBI had unearthed the names of 5,303 candidates whose appointments were allegedly illegal, and among them 1,804 were teachers.
