West Bengal SSC recruitment scam: Setback for Mamata govt, SC invalidates appointment of 25,753 teachers, other staff

In a big setback to the Mamata Banerjee-led Bengal government, the Supreme Court on Thursday upheld the Calcutta High Court order cancelling 25,753 appointments of teaching and non-teaching staff by the West Bengal School Service Commission (WBSSC) in 2016 in connection with the school jobs for cash scam.

The Court further ordered that fresh selection process should be completed within 3 months.

A Bench of Chief Justice of India (CJI) Sanjiv Khanna and Justice PV Sanjiv Kumar refused to interfere with the High Court decision after noting that the appointments were "vitiated by manipulation and fraud."


"We have gone through the facts. Regarding findings of this case, entire selection process is vitiated by manipulation and fraud and credibility and legitimacy is denuded. No reason to interfere. Tainted candidates must be terminated and appointments were resultant of cheating and thus fraud," the Court said.

However, the Bench added that the candidates already appointed need not hand over the salary given so far.

The bench fixed pleas, including the one filed by the West Bengal government challenging the high court direction for a CBI probe, for hearing on April 4.

The detailed judgement is awaited.

On February 10, the top court reserved its judgement on a batch of petitions in the matter and said that those who got jobs wrongly may be knocked out.

The top court commenced the final hearing on December 19 last year and heard the parties on January 15, 27 and February 10 before reserving its verdict on the politically-sensitive case.

Citing irregularities such as OMR sheet tampering and rank-jumping, the high court had invalidated the appointment of 25,753 teachers and non-teaching staff in state-run and state-aided schools in West 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 top court, however, permitted the CBI to continue with its probe into the matter.

The case stemmed from the alleged irregularities in the 2016 recruitment process conducted by the West Bengal SSC in which 23 lakh candidates appeared for 24,640 posts and a total of 25,753 appointment letters were issued.

The apex court had termed it a "systemic fraud".

The high court instructed those appointed outside the officially available 24,640 vacancies, those recruited after the expiry of the official date, and those who submitted blank OMR sheets but obtained appointments to return all the remunerations and benefits received by them with 12 per cent per interest.

Former West Bengal education minister Partha Chatterjee and Trinamool Congress MLAs Manik Bhattacharya and Jiban Krishna Saha are among the accused being probed in the recruitment scam.

(With PTI inputs)