Kumar Bahukhandi
West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee spoke to the media after the Supreme Court order-Photo -ANI
The Supreme Court today on Thursday April 3 , 2025 upheld the Calcutta High Court order, cancelling the appointment of more than 25,000 teachers and non-teaching staff under the West Bengal School Service Commission
The Supreme Court today upheld the Calcutta High Court order, cancelling the appointment of more than 25,000 teachers and non-teaching staff under the West Bengal School Service Commission. The Supreme Court said the entire selection process is “vitiated by manipulation and fraud” and its credibility and legitimacy “denuded”.
The bench of Chief Justice of India Sanjiv Khanna and Justice PV Sanjay Kumar said that it saw no reason to interfere with the High Court order. The court said the appointments resulted from cheating and are thus fraudulent.
One key aspect of the judgment is that those appointed through fair means have also suffered like the tainted candidates.
Raking this up, Ms Banerjee asked why so many people must be punished for a few. “It’s not just 25,000 candidates, their families are impacted too,” she said.
Referring to the huge case recovery from the residence of Delhi High Court judge Yashwant Varma, she said, “If you recover money from a sitting judge’s home, he is only transferred. Then why were these candidates not transferred? The first judge to give this order is now a BJP MP. BJP and CPM have conspired to lead to this verdict,” she said.
Alleging a conspiracy to target Bengal, she asked if it was a crime to be born in the state. She questioned who would teach in classrooms if so many teachers lost their jobs. She said over 11,000 of the affected teachers taught in Class 9 and 10 and over 5,500 in Class 11 and 12. “Class 9-12 are very important classes, the gateway to higher education. Many of them are correcting answer sheets of board exams. Do BJP and CPM want the education system to collapse?” she said.
