Why Calcutta HC struck down 25,000 teachers’ appointments and how it could impact the election

The Calcutta High Court’s cancellation on Monday of about 25,000 appointments of teachers and non-teaching staff in West Bengal government-run schools will not affect only those who have lost their jobs and the schools they were working at. It is also like to have an impact on the Lok Sabha elections in the state.

This is because in its judgment, the bench of Justices Debangsu Basak and Md Shabbar Rashidi blamed the state government for protecting those who benefitted from what the court found to be a fraudulent selection process. The court’s observations have already led to the state’s ruling party, the All India Trinamool Congress, being lambasted for corruption by the Bharatiya Janata Party, the main opposition party in the state, as well as the Trinamool Congress’ partners in the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance.

Scroll breaks down the judgment and its political implications.

Case of corruption

In 2016, the West Bengal School Service Commission conducted a State Level Selection Test to recruit teachers to state-run schools. It also appointed Group D employees for such schools that year – non-teaching positions that require a school degree.

Nearly 23 lakh candidates appeared for the selection test. From 2018, the commission appointed about 25,000 persons to teaching and non-teaching posts.

The recruitment process was challenged over alleged irregularities through several petitions by aggrieved candidates before the Calcutta High Court.

Taking cognisance of these petitions, in 2022, Justice Abhijit Gangopadhyay ordered an investigation by the Central Bureau of Investigation into the alleged irregularities. This order was confirmed by a division bench of the court. It appointed a four-member committee led by a retired judge of the Calcutta High Court, Justice Ranjit Kumar Bag, to carry out an investigation into the selection process.

Since 2022, both the Central Bureau of Investigation and the Enforcement Directorate have been probing the matter. The CBI is looking at the criminal offences alleged and the Enforcement Directorate into the purported connected economic offences.

The Central Bureau of Investigation has filed four first information reports related to the scam so far and the Enforcement Directorate two. They have also arrested some Trinamool Congress leaders: Partha Chatterjee, who was education minister in 2016, and two other MLAs from the party. Some officials of the School Service Commission have also been detained.

The Enforcement Directorate has reportedly attached or seized properties worth Rs 365 crores belonging to those allegedly involved in the case.

The directorate had interrogated Trinamool Congress General Secretary and MP Abhishek Banerjee in the case in May.

A court divided

The proceedings divided the High Court bench along political lines. Several judges refused to touch the case. Those who agreed to hear it often gave conflicting orders. Gangopadhyay played a key role in the saga.

In April 2023, the Supreme Court had moved petitions relating to the case from Gangopadhyay’s court after he declared in an interview to a television news channel his intention to prosecute Mamata Banerjee in the case.

Before that, in June 2022, Gangopadhyay had cancelled the recruitment of 269 teachers appointed through the selection test in 2016. His order was stayed by the Supreme Court in April last year.

In May, Gangopadhyay cancelled the recruitment of about 36,000 teachers hired by the state government in 2016. This was stayed by the Supreme Court in July.

Last month, Gangopadhyay resigned from the High Court and immediately joined the BJP. He will be contesting the Lok Sabha elections as a BJP candidate in Bengal next month.

Gangopadhyay admitted at a press conference that he had been in touch with the BJP even as he served as a judge on the High Court.

Scroll has previously reported how Gangopadhyay’s conduct had raised questions about judicial independence.

“This harms the legitimacy of the judiciary,” legal academic Anuj Bhuwania told Scroll. “The Chief Justice of the Calcutta High Court should conduct an internal audit on the inner workings of Gangopadhyay’s Bench.”

Court’s reasoning

In its judgment on Monday, the court held that evidence from the Bag committee, the Central Bureau of Investigation and the school service commission established several illegalities in the selection process.

These included the destruction by the commission of candidates' Optical Mark Recognition sheets used in multiple choice question exams. Scanned images were not preserved on the commission's server. No merit list was published containing the marks of the candidates. Some candidates who submitted blank Optical Mark Recognition sheets were appointed. Others were not on the panel of eligible teachers. Candidates lower on the merit list were found to have been appointed over those higher up.

The petitioners had asked to court to actually appoint them to the posts for which the recruitment process had been undertaken.

However, the court decided to go beyond this demand. It instituted measures that would “act as a disincentive if not deterrence” for what it described as a “sordid saga” and a “scam of…epic proportions” being repeated. Under Article 142 of the Constitution, constitutional courts are accorded a plenary power to pass orders “for doing complete justice” in any case.

Since the court concluded that it was not possible to segregate deserving candidates from undeserving ones due to the entire selection process being vitiated, it declared all appointments made under it null and void.

It emphasised that its decision was also guided by the need to protect schools from teachers who may have been appointed fraudulently and therefore lack the honesty and integrity to “impart wholesome education”.

In addition, the court directed those who were appointed with blank Optical Mark Recognition sheets and those appointed from outside the panel of eligible teachers as well as after the expiry of the panel to return all remuneration and benefits received from the state with interest at 12% per year. The court said that this was “proceeds of crime”. It also instructed the Central Bureau of Investigation to interrogate these persons in the course of its investigation in the court cases it had filed relating to the scam.

It ordered the school selection commission to conduct fresh recruitment for the posts, preferably within a fortnight of the declaration of the Lok Sabha election results.

Legal experts confirmed that constitutional courts are legally permitted to cancel recruitment exams due to systemic fraud. The Supreme Court had articulated this position as recently as in 2021. However, there is no precedent of any court actually effecting the mass cancellation of thousands of recruitments.

These are difficult questions without any “hard or fast rules”, said Senior Advocate Mohan Katarki. “If someone has been in service for three-four years, then striking their appointment down may not be justified,” he said.

Corruption allegations

In its judgment, the court has accused the state government of shielding those who benefitted from the illicit recruitment process.

“It is shocking that, at the level of the cabinet of the state government, decision is taken to protect employment obtained fraudulently in a selection process conducted by SSC [School Service Commission] for State Funded Schools,” noted the judgment.

It also said that it is “inconceivable” that those who perpetuated the scam and benefitted from it do not have a “deep and pervasive connection” with those involved in the decision-making process.

Since Monday, BJP leaders in Bengal, including Gangopadhyay, have attacked the Trinamool Congress government in Bengal for being corrupt and demanded the resignation of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.

Even the Trinamool Congress’s INDIA bloc partners condemned Banerjee’s government. The Congress’ Bengal Chief and MP Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury accused the Trinamool of instituting corruption in Bengal. Communist Party of India (Marxist) State Secretary Mohammed Salim called for Mamata Banerjee and Abhishek Banerjee to be arrested.

In Bengal, the INDIA partners are contesting Lok Sabha seats in the election individually.

Mamata Banerjee has claimed that the verdict is illegal and accused the BJP of influencing the judiciary. The Bengal government has already filed a petition before the Supreme Court challenging the High Court verdict.

“Since courts have also become players in the political process, they should exercise restraint when the Model Code of Conduct is in place,” said legal academic Anuj Bhuwania. “They should be mindful of the role they may be playing with regard to serving a particular political side.”