Supreme Court sets aside order to conduct fresh selection for teachers in West Bengal Primary Schools

A single bench of Calcutta HC had earlier directed termination of teachers and ordered fresh selection to be conducted within three months.

The Supreme Court on Friday set aside the Calcutta High Court's interim order directing the West Bengal Board of Primary Education to conduct fresh selection for 32,000 teacher posts before the end of August 2023.

A bench of Justices J K Maheshwari and Justice K V Viswanathan asked the Calcutta High Court to decide the matter related to cash for job scam at the earliest.

The court took into contention by the WB Primary Education Board that the exercise to be conducted would be expansive one and can't be undertaken within the stipulated time frame.

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It said since the HC's division bench had stayed the termination of teachers, the direction to conduct fresh selection was not justified. The affected candidates contended they were not heard by the High Court.

A single bench of the High Court had earlier directed termination of teachers and ordered fresh selection to be conducted within three months.

After hearing senior advocates Mukul Rohatgi, A M Singhvi, Shyam Divan and Kalyan Bandopadhyay among others, the bench said, "in view of the fact that this a matter relating to selection and appointment of large number of assistant teachers, we hope and trust that such controversy ought to be decided at the earliest. Therefore, we request the High Court to expedite the writ appeal.”

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A single bench of Justice Abhijit Gangopadhyay had in May ordered the cancellation of the appointment of around 36,000 candidates who were untrained at the time of their recruitment as primary teachers in West Bengal government-sponsored and -aided schools, as due procedure was not followed in the appointment process of 2016.

The court had said that "jobs were sold like a commodity" and “corruption of this magnitude” was never known in West Bengal as candidates were recruited without appearing for compulsory aptitude test.