36,000 Teacher Appointments Cancelled due to Recruitment Scam: Calcutta HC

The Calcutta High Court on Friday issued a landmark judgment in the Priyanka Naskar vs Union of India case, cancelling the appointments of over 36,000 teachers across the State of West Bengal. The appointments had been made in 2016 without following due procedure.

Single-judge Justice Abhijit Gangopadhyay, while delivering the judgment, said that he could smell “stinking rats” in the recruitment scam known as school jobs for cash scam. 

The judgment stated that the appointment of all 36,000 (thirty six thousand) (more or less) candidates who were untrained at the time of recruitment in 2016 recruitment process conducted by the Board in the post of primary teachers are cancelled.

The Court noted that to recruit such candidates who scored less, they were given extra marks or maximum marks in aptitude tests which were shown to be conducted only on paper. No selection committee was constituted for the purpose of selection of eligible candidates and instead it was done by one outside agency, a third party which was not at all a part of the Education Board.

The Court further noted that it has now gradually come to light by investigation of ED that jobs for primary school teachers were actually sold to some candidates who had the money to purchase the same by paying bribes. A corruption of this magnitude was never known in the State of West Bengal.

The former Education Minister, the former President of the Board and a number of middlemen through whom the jobs were sold like a commodity are now behind the bars and the CBI and ED investigation is being continued now in full swing.

The bench refused to refer to any of the judgments cited by the State seeking to dismiss the petition filed against the 2016 recruitment of primary school teachers. It said that those judgments are not required to be mentioned at all in the factual situation of the case as those are “bright stars of the space much much above the ground realities.” The ground reality is wherein the unemployed youths live with tears in their eyes because this recruitment scam is a crime against the society and also a fraud where the Board and its former Chairman was well aware of the rules of recruitment but cared a fig and started a play to hoodwink all concerned.

The Court, therefore, cancelled appointments of all the 36,000 candidates, who were untrained at the time of the recruitment process in 2016. 

It ordered the Board to immediately arrange for a recruitment exercise for candidates, who were untrained at the time of recruitment (including candidates who have obtained training qualification in the meantime) within a period of 3 (three) months from date only for the candidates who participated in 2016 recruitment process, where both interview and aptitude test of all examinees shall be taken and the whole interview process has to be video-graphed carefully and preserved.