Kolkata: The Calcutta High Court on Thursday upheld a previous order of its single-judge bench which dismissed the petition of ‘tainted and ineligible’ West Bengal School Service Commission (WBSSC) candidates who moved the court again, seeking participation in the fresh recruitment process for school teachers in the state.
Last week, the WBSSC came out with a list of 1,806 “tainted” candidates. They were marked as “tainted” for getting jobs against payment of cash and hence deemed “ineligible” for future recruitment.
Last week, a section of these “tainted” candidates approached the Calcutta High Court’s single-judge bench of Justice Saugata Bhattacharyya seeking permission to participate in the fresh recruitment examination.
However, Justice Bhattacharyya’s bench rejected the petition and refused to interfere with the list of ‘tainted and ineligible’ candidates, which was published by the WBSSC last week.
The court observed that this was not a suitable case to interfere with the published WBSSC list, and at the hearing, the court questioned where the “tainted ineligibles” who filed the petition had been for so long.
Thereafter, the same group of “tainted” candidates approached Calcutta High Court’s division bench of Justice Tapabrata Chakraborty and Justice Reetobrata Kumar Mitra, challenging the single-judge bench order.
Appearing on behalf of the “tainted” candidates, senior counsels and four-time Trinamool Congress Lok Sabha member Kalyan Banerjee said that there had been some mistakes in sorting the “tainted” and “untainted” candidates.
The division bench then observed that even after making such a mistake, “how could the WBSSC officers retain their jobs?”
Finally, the division bench rejected the petition and upheld the single-judge bench’s order. The division bench also observed that when the Supreme Court in the matter gave clear directions on the “tainted” candidates, there was no scope for further deliberation in the matter elsewhere.
“There is no such opportunity. If you want to explain, you will have to go to the Supreme Court again.” Justice Chakrabrty observed.
(IANS)