The Calcutta High Court on Tuesday dismissed a batch of petitions challenging the publication of a list of tainted candidates in the school recruitment scam, holding that the issue was governed by a Supreme Court directive.
Justice Sougat Bhattacharyya observed that since special leave petitions on the matter are still pending before the Supreme Court, and the list of tainted candidates was published pursuant to the apex court’s August 28 order, there was no scope for the high court to interfere.
He rejected the petitioners’ contention that they were “untainted teachers” wrongly included in the list, stressing that the SSC (West Bengal Central School Service Commission) had acted strictly in compliance with the Supreme Court’s directive.
On August 28, the Supreme Court recorded the SSC’s submission that names of candidates whose appointments were invalidated would be made public on the commission’s website within seven days. Acting on this, the SSC published a memo dated August 30 listing 1,804 tainted candidates linked to the 2016 State Level Selection Test (SLST) for classes 9 to 12.
The petitions before the Calcutta High Court were filed by several of those candidates, challenging the legality and fairness of making their names public.
The controversy stems from the apex court’s finding that the entire SLST recruitment process for government-sponsored and aided schools in West Bengal was tainted. As a result, more than 25,000 teaching and non-teaching staff lost their jobs.
Justice Bhattacharyya reiterated that the SSC list was an outcome of the Supreme Court’s binding order and therefore beyond the high court’s purview.
