The Supreme Court on Tuesday deferred the hearing on the appeal of the West Bengal government against the Calcutta High Court order invalidating and cancelling the appointment of 25,753 teachers by the state’s School Service Commission (SSC) in state-run schools.A three-judge bench, led by CJI D Y Chandrachud and including Justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra, directed the respondents (the original writ petitioners before the High Court) to file their counter affidavits within two weeks, failing which their right to file the counter would be exhausted.The apex court sought their responses after hearing the plea filed by the state of West Bengal, along with the SSC and the affected candidates.The court said that no counter affidavit has been filed till date. “In the event that any of the respondents seek to file their counters, they shall do so on or before two weeks. If no counter is filed, then the right to file a counter affidavit shall stand closed and the proceedings shall be conducted on the basis of the record as it stands,” it said.Challenging the Calcutta High Court’s order, the state government, in its appeal filed before the top court, said the HC cancelled the appointments “arbitrarily”, and without any proper reasoning. Around 23 lakh candidates had appeared in the examinations for the 25,000 job vacancies in 2016. It had been alleged before the High Court that most candidates were given jobs after wrongly evaluating the OMR sheets.The High Court Bench of Justices Debangsu Basak and Md Shabbar Rashidi, in its order, declared the State Level Selection Test-2016 (SLST) recruitment procedure “null and void”. The court had thus ordered the cancellation of all appointments made through the procedure in the government-sponsored and aided institutions in the state.Challenging the Calcutta high court’s order, the state government, in its appeal filed before the top court, said the HC cancelled the appointments “arbitrarily”, and without any proper reasoning. “The high court had erred in its order. It fails to appreciate the ramification of cancelling the entire selection process leading to straightaway termination of teaching and non-teaching staff from service with immediate effect, without giving sufficient time to the petitioner state to deal with such an exigency, rendering the education system at a stand-still,” the plea of the West Bengal government, filed in the top court, said.The West Bengal teachers’ scam revolves around the selection of assistant teachers for classes 9th-10th and 11th-12th and Group C (clerks) and D posts in the state. Candidates had to undergo a teacher eligibility test (TET), an interview and a personality test. The selection of teachers was based on a combination of their TET scores, academic marks, interview performance and personality test results.But the HC, after finding that due process was not followed in the teachers appointment process, cancelled the entire procedure of appointment.The Calcutta High Court in its order had directed the CBI to investigate the case, including matching of hard disks with the SSC database after the original OMR sheets were reportedly destroyed.
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