Kolkata, Feb. 10 -- The Supreme Court on Monday reportedly reserved its judgement related to the petitions against the Calcutta High Court's decision invalidating the appointment of 25,753 teachers and other staff in state-run and state-aided schools of Bengal.
The bench comprising Chief Justice Sanjiv Khanna and Justice Sanjay Kumar reserved the judgement after hearing the arguments. The court heard 124 petitions, including the one filed by the Bengal government, against the High Court verdict.
Senior advocate Rakesh Dwivedi, representing the state government, had assailed the High Court verdict. Besides him, a battery of senior advocates including Mukul Rohatgi, Ranjit Kumar, Abhishek Singhvi, Dushyant Dave, PS Patwalia, Rakesh Dwivedi, Maninder Singh, Shyam Divan, Prashant Bhushan, Meenakshi Arora and Karuna Nandi argued in the case. The Supreme Court commenced the final hearing on December 19, 2024 and heard the parties on January 15, 27 and February 10 before reserving the much-anticipated verdict on the politically-sensitive case which saw the arrest of former Education minister Partha Chatterjee on money laundering charges, besides other ruling party leaders. The Calcutta High Court, citing irregularities such as OMR sheet tampering and rank-jumping, had invalidated the appointment of 25,753 teachers and non-teaching staff in state-run and state-aided schools of Bengal. On May 7 last year, the Apex Court stayed the High Court's order over the appointments made by the state's school service commission (SSC). The CBI was, however, permitted to continue with its probe in the matter. The case stemmed from the alleged irregularities in the 2016 recruitment process conducted by the West Bengal SSC.
The Apex Court earlier termed the alleged recruitment scam in Bengal as a "systemic fraud" and said the state authorities were duty-bound to maintain the digitised records pertaining to the appointment of 25,753 teachers and non-teaching staff.
Published by HT Digital Content Services with permission from Millennium Post.