West Bengal School Staff Recruitment Scam : Live Updates From Supreme Court Hearing
The Supreme Court is hearing the appeals filed by the State of West Bengal and certain private individuals challenging the decision of the Calcutta High Court to set aside the appointments of nearly 25,000 school staff.The High Court quashed the appointments on the ground that they were illegal. The Court also issued direction to the CBI to investigate into the recruitment scam.The Supreme...
The Supreme Court is hearing the appeals filed by the State of West Bengal and certain private individuals challenging the decision of the Calcutta High Court to set aside the appointments of nearly 25,000 school staff.
The High Court quashed the appointments on the ground that they were illegal. The Court also issued direction to the CBI to investigate into the recruitment scam.
The Supreme Court earlier observed that it will see if the untainted appointments can be segregated instead of quashing the entire recruitments.
A bench comprising Chief Justice of India Sanjiv Khanna and Justice Sanjay Kumar is hearing the matter.
Bench concludes today's hearing, matter will now be continued in January 2025
CJI: Thursdays will be regular days from now, a circular will be issued- brief note on the matters will be there
Counsel : statement under 65B is given by the person who has no lawful authority over the data
CJI: the data has been retrieved from him, all he says is that the data is as per what was stored in the hard drive
counsels submit on their individual cases
Another Counsel (for the allegedly tainted): the OMR sheets found from Pankaj Bansal are not ours
Nandy: across the board, it is admitted that there are generational losses....for examples - when in 2019/2018 when we converted the word to PDF there would be errors
Nandy (for assistant teachers) : as per the order there are 3 types of tainted, based on different kinds of evidence, I am in third category where OMRs are challenged
Sr Adv Karuna Nandy: it is not the hash value of each of the OMRs compared
CJI: what they have done is that they compared the hash value of the two harddrives
Patwalia: SSC in proceedings have recorded that all actual sheets are destroyed
CJI: you want us to believe your argument?
Sr Adv Patwalia for affected candidates: according to me, the affidavit of the board can't be relied upon, every authority is relying upon the information of that Gentleman (Pankaj Bansal) who says 'as per my knowledge'
Counsel : we have written the exam, got good marks, now we are being thrown out without any evidence
Counsel : mylords keep repeating everyday that everyone should be given an opportunity, here I am saying that there is no material to indicate that there are tainted results
CJI: the SSC, board also admit there is wrong doing, the CBI is also saying there is wrong doing, we are going by preponderance