'Entire Selection Process Tainted' : Supreme Court Upholds Quashing Of 25K Staff Appointments By West Bengal SSC In 2016

The Supreme Court today (April 3) upheld the decision of the Calcutta High Court, which invalidated nearly 25000 teaching and non-teaching staff appointments made by the West Bengal School Selection Commission (SSC) in 2016.The Court approved the finding of the High Court that the selection process was vitiated by fraud and was tainted beyond repair. The Court upheld the High Court's judgment cancelling the appointments en-block.The bench of Chief Justice of India Sanjiv Khanna and Justice Sanjay Kumar was considering the batch of petitions challenging the Calcutta High Court's order setting aside the appointments in government schools.The Court held that candidates found to be tainted must refund the salaries received by them. However, the candidates not found to be tainted need return the payments.Court's conclusionsPronouncing the verdict, CJI Khanna said : "In our opinion, this is the case where the entire selection process is vitiated and tainted beyond resolution. Manipulation and fraud on a large scale, coupled with the intention to cover up have tainted the selection process beyond repair. The legitimacy and credibility of the selection process are denuded. We find no reason to interfere with the direction of the High Court that the services of the tainted candidates, where appointed, must be terminated and they will be required to refund any salaries and payment they received. Since the appointments are the result of fraud and cheating, we see no justification to alter this direction.For candidates not specifically found to be tainted, their entire selection process has been rightly declared null and void due to egregious violations and illegalities which violate Articles 14 and 16 of the Constitution. As such, the appointments of these candidates are cancelled. However, candidates who are already employed need not be asked to refund or restitute any payments made to them. However, their services will be terminated. Furthermore, no candidate can be appointed once the entire examination process and results have been declared void."Limited relief for untainted candidatesAs regards those candidates who do not fall in the tainted category and who have previously worked in departments of the State or autonomous bodies, the Court said that they must be allowed to apply to their previous positions in various governmental departments/ autonomous bodies. Such applications will be processed by the Government departments/autonomous bodies within 3 months and the candidates will be allowed to resume their position. It was clarified that the period between the termination of the previous appointment and rejoining will not be considered as a break in service. Their seniority and other entitlements will be preserved, and they will be eligible for increments. However, for the period they were employed under the disputed appointment, no wages will be paid by the State Government or autonomous bodies. Further, if required and necessary, supernumerary posts may be created for persons appointed in the interregnum.On Disabled Candidates The Court did not interfere with the High Court's direction allowing one disabled appointee to continue on humanitarian grounds. However, the Court clarified that other disabled candidates will not be entitled to the same benefit.The Court added that the disabled candidates will continue to receive wages until the fresh selection process is carried out. These disabled candidates will be allowed to participate in the selection process, if required, with age relaxations and other concessions. Similarly, other candidates not tainted will be allowed to participate in the fresh process with appropriate age relaxation.The bench held that the present observations and findings will not influence the criminal proceedings. The Court will also hear separately the Special Leave Petition filed by the State of West Bengal against the High Court's direction for CBI investigation on April 4.There are 5 main categories of stakeholders which the Court identified : (1) West Bengal Government; (2) WBSSC; (3)Original Petitioners - who were not selected (representing classes 9-10, 11-12, groups C and D); (4) persons whose appointments are cancelled by the High Court ; (5) Central Bureau of Investigation.The core issue for the Court to examine was how credible would be the scanned data of the original copies of the OMR sheets since there is no concrete proof that the original OMR sheets, after being collected from the candidates, were not tampered with before scanning. Notably, the SSC admitted to have destroyed the original OMR sheets after 1 year of the exam in terms of the exam rules.How Was The Scanning Of OMR Sheets Conducted & CBI FindingsNotably, the SSC had tasked a private company called NYSA Communications for the scanning and evaluations of the OMR sheets, which was done at the office of the SSC. However, NYSA had sub-delegated the task of scanning to an entity by the name of DATA Scantech...

'Entire Selection Process Tainted' : Supreme Court Upholds Quashing Of 25K Staff Appointments By West Bengal SSC In 2016

Anmol Kaur Bawa

The Court observed that there was widespread fraud and manipulation in the process.

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