Kolkata: It all started in July 2021, with the erstwhile Calcutta High Court’s single-judge bench of Justice Abhijit Gangopadhyay, currently a BJP Sabha member, started hearing the first case about the multi-crore school job case in West Bengal.
On November 22 of the same year, the Calcutta High Court gave direction for a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe in the matter for the first time, and that order was in relation to Group-D non-teaching staff in state-run schools.
In December 2021, Calcutta High Court’s erstwhile division bench of Justice Rajasekhar Mantha and Justice Rabindranath Samanta ordered an interim stay on the CBI probe and directed a judicial probe in the matter by a committee headed by Justice Ranjit Kumar Bag (retired).
Again in February 2022, the single-judge bench of then Justice Gangopadhyay ordered a CBI probe into the recruitment of Group-C category non-teaching staff.
However, the division bench of the Calcutta High Court again stayed the CBI probe order and instead directed the inclusion of the matter within the investigation then being carried out by the committee led by Justice Bag (retired).
Later, subsequent orders were passed by then Justice Abhijit Gangopadhyay directing a CBI probe also in the recruitment of teaching staff for secondary and higher secondary categories.
Finally, in the month of April 2022, CBI started the investigation into the recruitment of both teaching and non-teaching staff.
Meanwhile, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) also started a parallel probe in the matter from the money laundering angle.
Finally, on May 18, 2022 Bag Committee submitted its report on the matter at the Calcutta High Court, and a division bench of the Calcutta High Court directed CBI to continue with the investigation of the irregularities in the recruitment of teaching and non-teaching staff.
On July 22, 2022, the ED officials arrested the erstwhile West Bengal Education Minister and Trinamool Congress Secretary General Partha Chatterjee on charges of his alleged involvement in the school job case.
In September 2022, CBI submitted its first report to the court confirming irregularities in the recruitment of teaching and non-teaching staff conducted by the West Bengal School Service Commission (WBSSC).
Meanwhile, the investigation by the two central agencies continued with many more arrests being made in this connection, and the matter finally reached the Supreme Court.
On November 9, 2023, the Supreme Court’s division bench of Justice Aniruddha Basu and Justice Bela M Trivedi directed the Calcutta High Court to constitute a special bench to hear the matter.
Accordingly, Calcutta High Court’s special division bench of Justice Debangsu Basak and Justice Shabbar Rashidi was constituted, and the same bench started hearing the matter on January 15, 2024.
A total of 17 hearings were done at the special bench from January 2024 to March at the same special bench.
Finally, on April 22, 2024, the special bench of Calcutta High Court ordered cancelation of the entire panel of a total of 25,753 appointments made by WBSSC which include secondary and higher secondary teachers and non-teaching staff in Group-C and Group-D categories on grounds that was impossible to segregate the genuine candidates from those ineligible ones getting jobs paying money.
The state government challenged the order at the apex court. Finally, on April 3, the division bench of the Supreme Court, headed by the Chief Justice of India, upheld the order of the special bench of the Calcutta High Court.
(IANS)
