Supreme Court stays CBI probe into West Bengal government officials' role in teacher recruitment scam

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday stayed the CBI probe against West Bengal government officials in the teachers' recruitment case.

The top court, however, refused to stay the Calcutta High Court order regarding termination of over 25,000 teachers due to alleged irregularities and sought to know if tainted and untainted appointments could be segregated.

“We will stay the direction which says the CBI will undertake further investigation against officials in the state government,” a bench of Chief Justice of India D Y Chandrachud and Justices J B Pardiwala and Manoj Misra said.

However, the bench declined to stay the high court order in connection with the termination of over 25,000 teachers, saying the matter would require a detailed examination for it.

Taking up the West Bengal government's plea, the bench expressed serious concern about the agency which conducted the recruitment test.

The court asked the West Bengal government counsel that it has to satisfy the court on how the Calcutta High Court had gone wrong.

“Look at how it was done. OMR sheet completely destroyed, mirror images not there, people not on the panel are recruited. This is a complete fraud," the bench observed.

Senior advocate Rakesh Dwivedi, appearing for the West Bengal government, questioned the High Court’s decision to set aside all the appointments even when the CBI had found irregularities in only 8000 names.

A counsel contended that there was no need to set aside all the appointments when the untainted appointments could have been segregated.

The bench sought to know how it is possible to segregate the untainted appointments given that the OMR sheets have been destroyed. A counsel pointed out that secondary material is available.

The bench said the question to all counsel, representing the state government, was to establish that on the basis of material available is it possible to segregate valid and invalid appointments and stressed that 25000 is a big number.

The bench said that 25,000 jobs were taken away, which is a serious thing.

Senior advocate Dushyant Dave raised the issue of Justice Abhijit Gangopadhyay who ordered the CBI and subsequently joined BJP. Senior advocates Mukul Rohatgi and Neeraj Kishan Kaul also appeared in the matter.

It fixed the matter for further hearing on May 6.

The West Bengal government challenged the validity of the HC's order invalidating the appointment of 25,753 teachers and non-teaching staff made by the School Service Commission (SSC) in state-run and state-aided schools.

The high court had said the CBI would undertake further investigations with regard to the persons involved in the state government approving the creation of a supernumerary post to accommodate illegal appointments.

The state government claimed the HC failed to appreciate the ramification of cancelling the entire selection process, leading to straightaway termination of teaching and non-teaching staff from service with immediate effect, without giving sufficient time to the petitioner state to deal with such an exigency, rendering the education system at a standstill.

The HC's division bench had ordered cancellation of all appointments made through the recruitment process of State Level Selection Test-2016 (SLST) in government and aided schools, declaring it as "null and void". It had also directed the selected candidates to refund the salaries paid to them.

Questioning validity of April 22 judgement, the state government said the High Court proceeded in a cursory manner, in utter disregard to the fact that the cancelling all appointments will lead to a huge vacuum in the schools, especially when the new academic sessions is on its brim.

Over 23 lakh candidates had appeared for the SLST-2016, which was marred by the allegations of gross irregularities. The matter which came to be known as cash for job scam led to arrest of former state education minister Partha Chatterjee and others.