West Bengal Teacher Recruitment Scam: Calcutta HC cancels 36,000 appointments; says ‘jobs sold like a commodity’

On May 12, the Calcutta High Court cancelled the appointment of about 36,000 ‘untrained’ primary school teachers who were recruited by the West Bengal Board of Primary Education in 2016. The court held, “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 for various reasons as have been elaborated above.”

The Calcutta High Court observed that the “gross illegality” in the selection procedure shows that the Board conducted the entire 2016 recruitment process “like affair of a local club” and noted that it is now coming to light with Enforcement Directorate’s investigation that “jobs for primary school teachers were actually sold to some candidates who had the money to purchase the employment.”

Furthermore, the court noted, “no selection committee was constituted for the purpose of selection of eligible candidates and preparation of panel of such candidates for appointment of teachers. It was done by one outside agency, a third party which was not at all a part of the Board and this third party was named as ‘confidential section’ of the Board. This is clear violation of Recruitment Rules. The Board has maintained total silence in this regard.”

The Calcutta High Court said that “corruption of this magnitude was never known in the State of West Bengal.” Furthermore, the court noted, “The former Education Minister, the former President of the Board and a number of middleman 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 seeing.”

The Calcutta High Court noted that instead of dealing with the pleadings addressing the allegations of corruption and illegalities in the recruitment process, the Board raised niceties of law and principles of law. The court said that “however nice or however laudable those principles may be this court as a court of justice will fail to deliver justice, knowing fully well that sense of justice is much above sense of law.”

Thereafter, the Calcutta High Court refused to throw out the writ application raising the issue of rampant corruption in the recruitment process and said, “if the writ application is thrown out on such nicities of law as this will mean that in the name of preserving the law the corruption would be protected which a constitutional court can never do keeping in mind the soul of our constitution and the constitutional conscience, I must say that in this recruitment scam stinking rats are being smelt.”

Background

The writ application has been filed by 140 writ petitioners who were qualified in Teacher Eligibility Test 2014 (TET 2014) and participated in the 2016 recruitment process but did not get an appointment. The recruitment process was held by the West Bengal Board of Primary Education which was to be held in accordance with the West Bengal Board of Primary School Teachers Recruitment Rules 2016 which came into effect from March 2, 2016.

The Calcutta High Court noted that during the course of the hearing, the petitioners disclosed particulars collected from the Board’s publications on its website that “there were serious illegalities in preparation of panel of 2016 recruitment process when viewed in respect of untrained candidates at the time of recruitment.”

“While disclosing such particulars, they made it clear that all their allegations of illegalities in recruitment are in respect of untrained candidates at the time of recruitment who were given appointment against 2016 Recruitment process,” the court further noted.

“Therefore, the candidates who were trained at the time of recruitment are outside the scope of this matter. The petitioners prayed for filing supplementary affidavit which was granted and from the supplementary affidavit to the writ application it became evident that all the petitioners had qualified TET 2014 and participated in the 2016 recruitment process and they were called in the interview but did not get the job,” the court added.