West Bengal: CM Mamata Banerjee to meet thousands of sacked teachers after SC verdict

Kolkata (West Bengal) [India], April 7 (ANI): West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee to meet the teachers who lost their jobs after the Supreme Court upheld Calcutta High Court order to cancel the appointment of over 25,000 staff in Bengal schools by the School Service Commission (SSC) in 2016.
Outside the meeting venue, a teaching staff member, Akhtar Ali said that those who are in the institutions and have committed fraud should be put in jail.
"Why punish us when we have passed the examination, given interviews, and then got selected? Why did such big fraud happen to us?" he said.

Meanwhile, another teacher hoped that CM Mamata Banerjee would understand their pain.

"We hope that she will understand the pain of us--almost 19,000 untainted people... We lost in the High Court but moved to the Supreme Court with the hope that we would win, but sadly, the judgement was not in our favour. We are trapped in this scam, and we are the collateral damage... We will not appear for the re-examination, and why should we?... As per the order, the tainted (employees) have been asked to pay back whatever they have earned as salary with interest in the last 6 months," she said.

Outside the venue of the meeting, a teacher Yasmin Parveen said that he had hopes from the West Bengal CM.
"We have hopes from the CM. We fulfilled all the procedures to get the job. After being employed for 7 years, we are now unemployed. We need nothing but our jobs back," Parveen said.

Earlier on Thursday, the Supreme Court upheld the Calcutta High Court's decision to quash the recruitment of more than 25,000 teachers and non-teaching staff by the West Bengal School Service Commission (SSC) in 2016 for the state-run and aided schools.
The bench of Chief Justice of India, Sanjiv Khanna and Justice Sanjay Kumar found that the selection process carried out by the West Bengal SSC was based on large-scale manipulations and fraud.
"In our opinion, this is a case wherein the entire selection process has been vitiated and tainted beyond resolution. Manipulations and frauds on a large scale, coupled with the attempted cover-up, have dented the selection process beyond repair and partial redemption. The credibility and legitimacy of the selection are denuded", the apex court bench stated in its judgement.
The apex court found no reason to interfere with the direction of the High Court that the services of "tainted" candidates must be terminated, and they should be required to refund any salaries/payments received.
"Since their appointments were the result of fraud, this amounts to cheating. Therefore, we see no justification to alter this direction", the bench added.
The top court's verdict came on a petition filed by the West Bengal government that challenged an April 2022 order of the Calcutta High Court which had cancelled the recruitment of more than 25,000 teachers and other staff for state-run and aided schools. The top court had reserved its verdict in the matter on February 10. (ANI)