The West Bengal government on Wednesday approached the Supreme Court against a Calcutta High Court order terminating the appointment of nearly 24,000 teaching and non-teaching staff in State-run and aided schools across the State.
The High Court had passed the order on April 22 in the school jobs-for-cash scam case.
Also Read | Amit Shah, Mamata Banerjee spar over West Bengal jobs termination
The State government said the High Court acted in an erroneous manner by mechanically cancelling all the appointments without segregating and examining the merits of each individual recruitment.
Besides, the sudden termination of services of 23,123 teaching and non-teaching staff has put school education in the State in a quandary, that too, at the beginning of the new academic year. The education system itself threatens to come to a virtual standstill. The students would ultimately be impacted by the order, the State complained.
CBI probe
West Bengal contended that the High Court ought to have stayed the implementation of its order for the time being, giving the West Bengal School Service Commission (SSC) leeway to make fresh appointments. In fact, the State said the High Court had ordered a CBI investigation into a Cabinet decision to create conditional supernumerary posts to accommodate the teachers whose appointments were allegedly irregular.
The State argued that even the CBI report had alleged irregularities in the recruitment of only a little over 4,000 appointments. Neither the SSC nor the CBI had ever indicated that the entire recruitment process was tainted.
The SSC had held the selection process in 2016 for assistant teachers for classes nine to 12 and non-teaching staff.
Also Read | West Bengal school job scam: Four teachers who allegedly got jobs using unfair means arrested
