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The West Bengal School Service Commission on Thursday claimed that it had provided the Calcutta High Court names of around 5,300 appointees from the 2016 school recruitment panel whose appointments were suspect, and stated that the remaining 19,000 teachers were “likely to be eligible”.
The Commission also said it believed that the 19,000 teachers, whose appointments also stand cancelled on account of a High Court judgment, might have met the necessary qualification criteria as laid down by the appointing authorities.
Talking to reporters, State SSC chairman Siddhartha Majumdar said, “We submitted before the court lists of candidates where anomalies in recruitment were found. These lists were based on two specific irregularities in recruitment, namely Optical Mark Recognition (OMR) sheet manipulation and rank jumps. The total number of such candidates for Groups C and D and teachers for Classes 9-10 and 11-12 was around 5,300.”
The claim came after the judgment of an HC Special Bench on Monday scrapped all 25,753 appointments made through the recruitment process of State Level Selection Test-2016 (SLST) in the West Bengal government-sponsored schools.
The court also directed that a section of those recruits will have to return salaries drawn by them along with 12% per annum interest.
In its judgment, the court said that it chose to cancel the entire appointment panel since it became impossible to separate the grain from the chaff on account of non-cooperation from the SSC and the Bengal government in providing the names of those who were illegally recruited.
In view of the HC order, the Commission will soon initiate a new recruitment process in which fresh candidates and those who lost school jobs on account of the court judgment can apply, Mr. Majumdar said.
Meanwhile, State Education Minister Bratya Basu said the government will preserve OMR sheets for 10 years. Speaking at the Trinamool Bhavan, Mr. Basu emphasised the State’s decision to retain the OMR sheets, drawing from the lessons of the SSC recruitment controversy. He indicated that the majority of the 26,000 SSC job recipients in 2017-18 were indeed eligible, citing SSC’s acknowledgement that 92% of them were deemed qualified.
